‘Action replay of 2024 elections’: PTI, TTAP reject GB election results, level rigging allegations

The PTI on Monday rejected the tentative election results for 24 seats of the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly, levelling allegations of rigging and calling for re-election in a constituency in Astore.

The preliminary count from Sunday’s polls indicates that the PPP is currently leading in 10 constituencies, the PML-N in six, and independent candidates in five.

Addressing a press conference, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said PTI was barred from campaigning in the days leading up to the election, alleging that it was part of a “planned arrangement aimed at eliminating the party from the polls”.

He said that out of the region’s 24 seats, PTI-backed candidates were leading in two constituencies — Naik Karim in Hunza and Sohail Abbas in Gilgit — while their ally Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen’s Muhammad Kazim was ahead in Skardu.

However, Gohar claimed PTI-backed candidates were “winning 100 per cent” in a total of eight constituencies — one seat from Astore, one from Diamer, two from Nagar, and one from Ghizer.

He alleged that due to “rigging, vote-stuffing, and the casting of bogus votes”, PTI’s “victory” was overturned. The PTI chairman said the party had demanded a re-election in Rehmanpur, Astore, stating that they had brought evidence of “167 bogus votes” to the presiding officer’s attention.

“PTI rejects the process, results and vote count of this election,” the PTI chairman said, stressing that “once again, people who did not have the people’s mandate have been given a false mandate”, in an apparent reference to the 2024 general elections.

He said the party planned to issue a white paper on the issue and outlined plans to hold a protest in GB after consulting its political allies.

“We will also observe a black day on the day the chief minister takes oath,” Gohar said.

He also demanded that, out of six seats reserved for women and three seats reserved for technocrats, PTI be given one seat from each category.

On Sunday, both PTI and the PPP were among the most vocal in their complaints of alleged irregularities and rigging. The two parties separately accused officials of delaying the release of official paperwork used to verify results at the polling-station level.

As the PPP and other political parties staged a series of rallies across the region and ramped up efforts to garner support ahead of the polls, PTI had alleged that the party was not being allowed to campaign for the elections, with its leaders detained and expelled from the region.

Separately, the opposition alliance Tehreek Tahaffuz Ayeen-e-Pakistan (TTAP) held a consultative meeting under the chairmanship of Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Mehmood Khan Achakzai, during which the alliance condemned efforts aimed at “keeping PTI out of the democratic process” in the GB elections.

In a statement, the TTAP called the GB elections an “action replay” of the 2024 general elections and rejected the results.

“When the decisions are going to be made elsewhere, then what is the point of holding elections?” the statement said, adding that in the aftermath of the elections, “neither the election commission nor the electoral process had any credibility left”.

The opposition alliance also expressed alarm at the law and order situation in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), urging the government to resolve the “legitimate demands” of the region’s people through dialogue amid ongoing protests in the region.

Referring to the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC )’s recent proscription, TTAP said, “Banning any representative organisation of the people is not a solution to the problem, nor can public opinion be changed by force”.