Azad Kashmir’s Ministry of Atami will be the head of Hamaks?

Sajjad Abbasi

After the loss of power of two Prime Ministers in a period of one and a half years, who will sit at the head of Azad Kashmir will be decided in the next few hours when the Legislative Assembly will elect the Leader of the House today, where Chaudhry Yasin will be the Prime Minister. Pakistan People’s Party and Nawaz League have emerged as strong candidates who claim that they will be able to get the support of 30 members of the Assembly in the House of 52 to be elected as Prime Minister. But as a candidate, they are claiming consensus, but due to factionalism in the party, the conflict over various names was going on till late night.

It should be noted that the Legislative Assembly consists of 53 members, including 41 general and 12 special seats, after the disqualification of Prime Minister Tanveer Ilyas, this number has become 52. Thus, 27 votes will be required to become the Prime Minister. The Tehreek-e-Insaf, which gained power under artificial management in the past, has become a victim of fragmentation and factionalism and has become a forward block in the Legislative Assembly. Chaudhry Rashid has emerged as the candidate of Tehreek-e-Insaf for the Prime Ministership. However, till this line was written, the process of manipulation was going on and both PPP and Tehreek-e-Insaf were claiming majority in their respective places. It is noteworthy that former ruling party Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan had given three names to his party leaders for the prime minister, including senior minister and acting prime minister Khawaja Farooq, besides Chaudhry Anwarul Haq and Azhar Sadiq.

Sources say that the original candidate of Tehreek-e-Insaaf was Azhar Sadiq, who is a financially stable party and can be an alternative to Tanveer Ilyas. However, former Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser and former Defense Minister Pervez Khattak, who arrived in Muzaffarabad to represent Imran Khan, are facing resistance from the rebel group of their own party and to nominate Chaudhry Rasheed as the candidate of Tehreek-e-Insaf for the Prime Ministership. The pressure is high for The interesting thing is that the original candidate of Tanveer Ilyas for the Prime Ministership was Dewan Farooq Chaghatai, but he has also expressed his willingness to support Chaudhry Rasheed, who is actually the candidate of the President of Azad Kashmir Barrister Sultan. According to sources, Barrister Sultan is still eyeing the Prime Minister’s chair and his aim is to replace Chaudhry Rashid in the next few months.

It should be remembered that after the election of Azad Kashmir, the real battle for the Prime Ministership was between Barrister Sultan and Tanveer Ilyas, in which Abdul Qayyum Niazi emerged as an unexpected candidate, whose government was not allowed to run for even six months. Earlier, the way of Tanveer Ilyas was cleared by making Barrister Sultan the President and later Tanveer Ilyas became the Prime Minister through the motion of no confidence, but his government was also terminated for contempt of court before the end of the year. Although Tehreek-e-Insaf is still claiming success in getting the prime ministership on the basis of majority in the Azad Kashmir Assembly, sources say that on the basis of the forward block, it is afraid of party members breaking up and Chaudhry Yasin is the only candidate for the prime ministership. So far, the strongest candidate has the support of 12 members of the People’s Party, seven of the Muslim League-Nine, one member each of the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Party and the Muslim Conference, thus they need 6 more votes to win, for which they are Tehreek-e-Insaf. Looking at the forward block.

It is also worth mentioning here that floor crossing law is not effective in Azad Kashmir unlike in Pakistan, so forward block members or any assembly member can individually vote for other party’s candidate. It should be remembered that the Leader of the House was to be elected in the Legislative Assembly on Friday, but the meeting had to be postponed due to the non-fulfillment of the quorum. There are currently 52 members in the Legislative Assembly, of which 31 belong to Tehreek-e-Insaf, 12 belong to the People’s Party. And seven belong to Non-League. According to the power-sharing formula between the People’s Party and the Muslim League-Nun, the Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir will be from the People’s Party. The prime minister will come for him, but the decision in his favor will be taken today.

Chaudhry Yasin faces opposition from Barrister Sultan. Will the Zardari formula work?

Although Chaudhry Yasin Azad of People’s Party is the favorite candidate for the prime ministership of Kashmir, he was heavily dependent on the forward block of Tehreek-e-Insaf, who promised to give him the ministries he asked for in return for voting in his favor. However, sources say that the president Barrister Sultan is not in favor of Chaudhry Yasin. He had offered the PPP that if they bring forward the former president Haji Yaqoob Khan for the prime ministership, they will provide the support of eleven members of the assembly. It was said that they have unanimously nominated Chaudhry Yasin as the Prime Minister’s candidate. Sources say that if “Zardari formula” is used even in the last few hours to bring PPP’s prime minister in Azad Kashmir and Tehreek-e-Insaf’s members throw their weight in the fold of PPP, then it is certain that Chaudhry Yasin will become the prime minister. That the Muslim League-N is also supporting Chaudhry Yasin, although the Nawaz League formally nominated Rana Ghulam Qadir as its candidate.

Assembly members are free for floor crossing?

According to constitutional experts, until a new law is brought by amending the constitution, the assembly members of Azad Kashmir are free to elect a new leader of the House of their own free will, no party restrictions apply to them. Sections 3 and 4 of Article 34 of Azad Kashmir Interim Constitution Act, 1974 provide full constitutional protection to the member regarding the proceedings within the Legislative Assembly which cannot be challenged in any court of law – Azad Kashmir in general. I refer to a decision given in the past under sub-section 3 of Section 5 of the Election Ordinance 1970 for the disqualification of any member of the Assembly which was given in the case of late Colonel Naqi. Now this law no longer exists because the Election Ordinance 1970 has been replaced by the Election Act 2020.