THIS is with reference to the article ‘Azad Kashmir saga’ (Sept 2), which rightly asked: ‘His nomination caught his own party by surprise. Gillani, who has also lost the last election, is not the electorate’s choice so whose nominee is he?’ It appears that the nomination of Iftikhar Gillani was secured through the influence of a single family rather than through an electoral mandate.
Gillani is, without a doubt, a smart and presentable young man with a law degree from the United Kingdom. He may, therefore, have seemed an obvious party nominee for the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly. Yet, a party nomination alone cannot place someone in the assembly. A candidate must go to the constituency, work among the people, contest an election and win the voters’ trust. Gillani has not succeeded in doing so independently. His only electoral victory came around 10 years ago, when the then party president in AJK had vacated his Muzaffarabad seat and backed Gillani in the by-election.
AJK’s constitutional structure provides another possible route to power. Under the 1974 Constitution, in addition to directly elected members, the assembly includes reserved and co-opted seats for women, ulema, technocrats and overseas Kashmiris. The constitution does not expressly bar co-opted members from occupying high offices. Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan had used this provision in 1991. As head of the Muslim Conference, he was first co-opted on the ulema seat before being elevated to become the prime minister. The precedent, as such, is there.
However, the comparison ends there.
Sardar Qayyum was a popular leader with a deep bond with Kashmiris of all generations. Gillani does not appear to enjoy similar public support. While he comes from a business family based in Muzaffarabad, many in AJK see him as remote and arrogant. This perception helps explain why he has struggled to build an independent electoral base.
The real question is not whether the constitution permits such an arrangement, but whether someone who has been ignored more than once by voters should be elevated to a high office through political patronage.
Jamshed Ishrat Islamabad