MUZAFFARABAD: Barrister Syed Iftikhar Gilani’s nomination for prime minister has given government formation in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir an unusual political twist.
He lost his Muzaffarabad City constituency in the recent general election but returned to the Legislative Assembly days later through a reserved technocrat seat.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz central leadership has now chosen him as its candidate for prime minister. If elected, Gilani will move from electoral defeat to the territory’s highest executive office through the parliamentary route of a reserved seat.
The development has revived an old debate over the difference between constitutional eligibility and a direct popular mandate.
A member elected on a reserved seat can legally become prime minister because the head of government is elected by the Assembly, not directly by voters. Politically, however, the choice is significant because prime ministers in the region have generally combined legislative majority with victory from a directly contested constituency.
Gilani belongs to an influential Muzaffarabad family closely associated with the founding of the PML-N in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
He received his early education in Islamabad before going to Britain for higher studies. He qualified as a barrister and, after returning, practised law in Islamabad for nearly a decade.
Gilani first contested the 2011 general election on a PML-N ticket and won despite facing an electoral understanding between the Pakistan Peoples’ Party and Muslim Conference in his constituency. At the time, the PPP was in government.
He retained the seat in 2016, defeating Khawaja Farooq Ahmed, and later became education minister.
During his tenure, the Education Department introduced recruitment through the National Testing Service. The PML-N presented the measure as an attempt to improve merit and transparency. His ministry also introduced measures relating to educational standards, teachers’ qualifications and the administrative structure of the department.
His latest political trajectory is very different.
Gilani contested Muzaffarabad City in the recent election but lost to Mukhtar Abbasi. He then entered the Assembly through the technocrat quota and has now been elevated by the party leadership as its candidate for prime minister.
Surprise Dark Horse
The choice has generated speculation within PML-N and Islamabad political circles. Some regard Gilani as close to Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, while others speak of support for him in Islamabad. These claims, however, have not been independently verified.
The PML-N is preparing to form its second government in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir. It first came to power in 2016, when Raja Farooq Haider became prime minister after an internal contest in which several names, including Mushtaq Minhas, were discussed.
This government formation has another unusual feature.
Reserved seats are being filled before elections are completed in seven constituencies of Poonch and Sudhnoti. As a result, voters in those seven constituencies, representing about 18 percent of the electorate cited in the source account, will initially have no directly elected representation when the reserved-seat process and government formation take place.
Yet the route from a reserved seat to the prime minister’s office is not unprecedented.
The most striking example came in 1991 when Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan resigned as president, entered the Assembly through the reserved ulema and mashaikh seat and then became prime minister.
That episode unfolded during one of the most complex political and constitutional crises in the region’s history.
Mumtaz Hussain Rathore became prime minister in June 1990 while Abdul Qayyum Khan became president. Political change in Pakistan soon transformed the situation in Muzaffarabad.
President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed Benazir Bhutto’s government, and Nawaz Sharif subsequently became prime minister. Opposition groups in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir then stepped-up attempts to remove Rathore.
By March 1991, Rathore feared that opposition groups had united and could carry a no-confidence motion against him. On March 31, he sent a summary seeking dissolution of the Assembly, which was dissolved on April 1.
There was no caretaker government system at the time, so Rathore continued as interim prime minister until fresh elections.
Elections were held on June 29, 1991. The Muslim Conference won a clear majority, securing 36 seats in the 48-member Assembly, including reserved seats.
But instead of ending the crisis, the election deepened it.
Adamant Rathore
Rathore refused to accept the results and declared the elections invalid. Section 56 of the Interim Constitution Act, 1974, was then invoked to remove him from the interim premiership, and he was arrested.
His detention triggered a PPP protest movement. The party’s women’s wing joined the demonstrations, and Rathore’s wife led protests.
After the prime minister’s office fell vacant, its powers were handed to administrator Sardar Muhammad Ashraf Khan. During the agitation, women protesters entered the administrator’s office and briefly occupied the prime minister’s chair before police cleared the building.
Rathore’s detention also reached an Islamabad court, which ordered authorities to produce him. He was later moved to an Agriculture Department guesthouse in Chak Shahzad and brought into public view on July 26.
Meanwhile, Abdul Qayyum Khan decided to leave the presidency and seek the premiership.
He resigned as president on July 19 and was elected to the Assembly on the reserved ulema and mashaikh seat. A former president had thus re-entered the legislature through a reserved seat to become a candidate for prime minister.
His path, however, was not immediately clear.
Acting president Sahibzada Ishaq Zafar filed a reference before the Supreme Court on July 25, asking whether Rathore could legally be removed under Section 56 of the Interim Constitution Act.
The Supreme Court rejected the reference on July 28, clearing a major hurdle in Abdul Qayyum Khan’s way.
Another constitutional complication arose over the Assembly proceedings.
Ishaq Zafar, serving as acting president, declined to perform the speaker’s functions. But Abdul Qayyum Khan, while president, had earlier authorised Raja Zulqarnain to administer oaths, and those powers had not been withdrawn.
Raja Zulqarnain therefore presided over the Assembly session, administered the oath to members and oversaw the election of Abdul Rashid Abbasi as speaker. Abbasi later became acting president and administered the oath of prime minister to Abdul Qayyum Khan.
The transfer of power also caused differences inside the Muslim Conference.
Sardar Sikandar Hayat maintained that Nawaz Sharif had promised him the premiership. Abdul Qayyum Khan, however, used the party’s Assembly majority to secure the post himself. Sikandar Hayat was subsequently made president and served from 1991 to 1996.
Past Precedents
The 1991 episode established a significant precedent: a reserved seat could become a route to the prime minister’s office.
Gilani’s case, more than three decades later, is different but carries an obvious similarity.
Abdul Qayyum Khan had been president before resigning and entering through a reserved seat. Gilani, in contrast, lost a direct general election before entering through the technocrat quota.
But in both instances, the politician seeking the premiership reached the Assembly without first winning a general seat in that election cycle.
That is where the debate over mandate begins.
In a parliamentary system, the prime minister is not directly elected by the public. Voters elect legislators, and a majority of legislators elects the prime minister.
A reserved-seat member therefore has parliamentary legitimacy if supported by a majority.
But political legitimacy can be viewed differently. A decision may be constitutionally valid while still raising questions about how voters perceive the mandate of the person chosen to govern.
The debate comes at a time when questions about representation, public confidence and government formation have already become prominent in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
There is also a wider historical dimension.
Several political arrangements later associated with Pakistan had earlier versions in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
When Ayub Khan introduced the Basic Democracies system, elections under that arrangement were held in the territory in 1961. Basic Democracies later became a central element of Ayub Khan’s political structure in Pakistan.
Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir held direct presidential elections in October 1970, while Pakistan’s general elections were held in December that year.
Similarly, parliamentary government under the Interim Constitution Act, 1974, was operating in the territory by 1975, while Pakistan held its first general election under the 1973 Constitution in 1977.
This history has prompted another question around Gilani’s nomination: is the emergence of a technocrat-seat prime minister merely a local government-formation strategy, or could it feed into Pakistan’s wider debate over technocratic governance?
Pakistan has periodically witnessed discussion about the failures of the existing political and administrative system and the possibility of a technocrat arrangement.
The source account notes that Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has acknowledged shortcomings in the existing system, while Health Minister Mustafa Kamal has spoken about problems in the bureaucratic structure.
There is, however, no confirmed decision to install a technocrat prime minister in Pakistan, and there is no evidence establishing Gilani’s nomination as a trial run for Islamabad. Connecting the two directly would therefore be premature.
Still, the historical record makes the Muzaffarabad development politically noteworthy.
Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir has repeatedly seen unusual constitutional and political arrangements. Some later became relevant to debates in Pakistan itself.
Immediate Test
Gilani now faces a more immediate test.
He will have to hold together competing groups within his party, establish a clear administrative direction and demonstrate that entry through a technocrat seat after an electoral defeat does not weaken his capacity to command either the Assembly or public confidence.
In 1991, Abdul Qayyum Khan used a reserved seat to reach the premiership during a constitutional storm.
In 2026, Gilani is approaching the same office through another reserved category, but in very different circumstances.
The similarity does not make history repeat itself.
It does, however, revive a recurring question in Muzaffarabad politics: whether parliamentary numbers alone are enough to settle the issue of political mandate.
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