Iftikhar Ali Gillani wins 30 of 44 votes to lead the Muzaffarabad assembly

Barrister Syed Iftikhar Ali Gillani of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was elected head of the Muzaffarabad assembly on Friday with 30 votes against 14 for Sardar Mukhtar Ahmed Abbasi of the Pakistan Peoples Party. Acting president Chaudhry Tariq Farooq swore him in the same day. The vote returns the PML-N to the regional office after a decade. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sent congratulations. Nawaz Sharif had nominated Gillani on Thursday.

The assembly is designed for 53 members. Its present strength is 46 because elections for seven seats in Poonch and Sudhnoti have not been held. Authorities blamed the delay on law and order. Only 44 ballots were cast on Friday. Speaker Chaudhry Tariq Farooq did not vote. PML-N regional president Shah Ghulam Qadir stayed away after a fight with his own party. Dawn reported that Gillani personally drove to the house of Raja Farooq Haider, a party heavyweight who had doubts about the nomination, and brought him to the session.

The underlying election ran in three phases on 27 July, 2 August and 3 August after a single-day poll was split on security grounds. Direct results so far give the PML-N 25 of 38 constituency seats and the PPP 12, with one seat to the Awami Dast-o-Bazu party, which backed the PML-N. Of eight reserved seats counted, the PML-N took six and the PPP two. Combined with allies, Dawn put the PML-N side at 32 of the 46 sitting members.

That arithmetic hides the street. The Joint Awami Action Committee, an outlawed grouping by the state’s description, called a boycott and has kept rallies going since early June. Protesters and security staff have been killed in those clashes. Indian coverage, including PTI via The Hindu, described the phases as marred by violence and by allegations of rigging. AP noted the boycott and the incomplete house in the same report that recorded Gillani’s 30 votes.

Gillani pledged jobs, merit, transparency and a digital economy in his first remarks. The PPP named Chaudhry Muhammad Yasin as opposition leader. Outgoing head Raja Faisal Mumtaz Rathore spoke to congratulate him. Those are the formalities of a house that still has seven empty chairs and a protest movement that does not recognise the house.

India and Pakistan both claim the whole former princely state. New Delhi does not treat the Muzaffarabad office as a sovereign post. Islamabad does. The practical consequence of Friday is narrower. A ruling-party lawyer now runs the civilian administration on the western side of the Line of Control, under a Pakistan federal government that wanted its own party back in the building, while a local agitation that tried to empty the ballot is still on the road.

Seven unfilled seats mean a later mini-election in Poonch and Sudhnoti will test whether the boycott hardens or fades. Until those seats exist, Gillani governs with a majority that was counted in a room missing a seventh of its map.