PaJK set to elect new President on September 24

MUZAFFARABAD: Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir will elect a new President on September 24, nearly eight months after the death of Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhary left the territory's top constitutional office vacant.

Dr Muhammad Najeeb Naqi Khan, a veteran politician and former health and finance minister from Sudhnoti district, has emerged as the likely next President after former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif nominated him for the office.

Sharif heads the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or PML-N, which won a clear majority in the region's Legislative Assembly elections held in phases in July and August.

With the party and its ally controlling 32 seats in the 46-member Assembly, Naqi is expected to have the numbers required in the September 24 vote.

The election will complete an unusual political transition in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Both the territory's new Prime Minister and its likely President have relatively low public profiles outside established political circles, even though both have previously served as legislators and ministers.

More significantly, neither has reached the territory's highest office this year on the strength of a fresh constituency victory.

Prime Minister Barrister Syed Iftikhar Ali Gilani lost his constituency in the recent election. He was subsequently brought into the Assembly through a reserved technocrat seat and then chosen by the PML-N leadership to head the government.

Naqi has a much longer electoral history, having served five terms in the Assembly. But his return to the centre of power has also come through a nomination by the leadership of a Pakistan-based political party rather than through a constituency victory in the latest election.

Their rise points to a changing pattern in the territory's politics, where Pakistan's major political parties are playing an increasingly decisive role in selecting the occupants of the highest constitutional offices.

For decades, politics in Pakistan-administered Kashmir was dominated by powerful home-grown figures who built their own electoral constituencies and political organisations.

The latest transition suggests the emergence of a different political order, in which regional leaders increasingly depend on nominations and parliamentary numbers controlled by the Pakistan-based parties with which they are affiliated.