GB polls

PTI complaint adds to the confusion

Gilgit-Baltistan went to the polls on Sunday, and yielded a result like the previous two: the party ruling in Islamabad won. The PTI was reduced to two seats in the 24-seat House. It had won 16 in 2020, but then it had been in office in Islamabad at the time. However, just as the central government has been formed by the PML(N) and the PPP, put together, the easiest path of the new GB government would be for them to form a majority. Whereas the PPP had five seats previously, now has 10, while the PML(N) now has eight seats (counting two independents it claims), more than double the three it had in the previous House. PTI Chairman Gohar Khan has said that the elections was fraudulent. If the elections were indeed fraudulent this time, then they would have been fraudulent in 2020, but no one heard the PTI complaining then.

It is worth noting that the PPP and PML(N) competed in this election against each other, though there was present in both a sense that the PTI was the real opponent. Reversing the example of the central government, the PPP seems ahead in the race to form the government, with the PML(N) supporting it from outside. Of course, the House itself has such a small membership, that forming a minority government is no easy task, not unless all the PPP members are laden with multiple portfolios. One of the bid differences the new GB government has with other provincial governments, is that climate change is a much more immediate problem. The province is subject to Glacial lake outburst floods, where glacier melt creates dams, and then the dam bursts, creating a one-time flash flood, which is devastating for all in its path.

The most intriguing part of the election is that its has no role as a weathervane for the rest of Pakistan. GB elects no MNAs, so the election does not point in that direction. The failure of the JUI(F) to win any seats, after it had won one last time, indicates that the sectarian impulses which showed up in sectarian clashes in the past, are now dying down. The GB House is also going to have to play a role in the Kashmir liberation struggle, for it should not be forgotten that it too is a disputed territory, subject to the same UN resolutions.