AJK PM resigns
Friday, October 16, 2009
The Prime Minister of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Sardar Yaqoob Khan, has stepped down after losing support, but says he has resigned “to avoid a political controversy in the Legislative Assembly”. But he has hinted at horse-trading which he thinks will be discouraged by his resignation. He mercifully did not dissolve the assembly, thus sparing a new election during a season where everyone is scared of holding elections.
Sardar Sahib had put together his patchwork government after ousting Sardar Atique Ahmed’s Muslim Conference government in January. And Muslim Conference had been in power since July 2001 when the government of the AJK People’s Party was toppled after powerful jihadi organisations had accused it of being sharabi (addicted to alcohol) and of taking graft. Sardar Yaqoob had done the same sort of thing to Sardar Atique in January, accusing the Muslim Conference of graft and proving his point by plucking its members out of the house majority.
Sardar Atique had left in a huff in January, accusing the PPP in Islamabad of stage-managing his ouster. Now it seems the members who had deserted him have sniffed the air once again for change in Islamabad and decided to switch horses in the middle of the race. The PPP in Islamabad is projected by the media as being on the back-foot with the army. That is enough to undermine political conviction in a “frontline” region with a Constitution that vests authority not in parliament but a ministry in Islamabad.
AJK has remained unstable because of jihad. If a government becomes too innovative in policy it is shown the door. Sardar Atique in January had endorsed the victory of the National Conference on the Indian side and had agreed with its rejection of jihad. But Sardar Farooq’s government that replaced his was a patchwork of dissidents and couldn’t last; the AJKPP had walked off crying foul. With a thin plank of support to walk, Sardar Farooq was expected to fall, which he has.
Daily Times, Pakistan, Friday, October 16, 2009
Labels: Azad Kashmir
posted @ 6:06 PM,
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