ISLAMABAD: Abdul Qayyum Niazi, a politician belonging to the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of Prime Minister Imran Khan, was on Wednesday elected as the premier of Pakistan's Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) region.
AJK is administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entity and constitutes the western portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947.
Over 3.2 million voters were registered to elect a 53-member assembly in the region for a five-year term. Out of 53 seats, 45 are general, while eight are reserved for women, technocrats and religious scholars.
Niazi secured 33 votes in the legislative assembly polls, Pakistan’s state-run media reported. His rival and a joint opposition candidate Chaudhry Latif Akbar only got 15 votes.
“He [Abdul Qayyum Niazi] is a vibrant and genuine political worker whose heart beats with the [party] workers,” Pakistan's information minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said in a Twitter post.
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) August 4, 2021
The PTI won the recent elections in the region which were held on July 25.
Kashmir is an internationally recognized disputed region between India and Pakistan. The two South Asian nuclear neighbors claim its territory in full but only control it in part.
Over the years, Kashmir has witnessed border skirmishes between the two countries along the Line of Control and violence has severely limited tourism in the area.