SRINAGAR, India: Indian-administered Kashmir voted on Wednesday to elect its first government since New Delhi scrapped the Himalayan territory’s semi-autonomous status, sparking widespread protest in a region wracked by a decades-long insurgency.
The change in 2019 by Hindu-nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought the Muslim-majority territory under New Delhi’s direct control and was accompanied by mass arrests and a long communications blackout.
Since then the territory has been without an elected government, ruled instead by a federally appointed governor.
Security was high on Wednesday as the region’s 8.7 million registered voters prepared for the second round of their first local election for a decade.
Paramilitary troops guarded polling stations and patrolled largely deserted streets in the main city of Srinagar, with few early voters seen, an AFP reporter said.
“Since the last election ten years ago we were left at the mercy of God,” said Tariq Ahmed, 40.
“No one asked us about our problems. I am happy this election is happening. I hope we get our own representative with whom poor people like myself can raise everyday issues.”
Polling stations opened at 7 am (0130 GMT), the government said.
Turnout is expected to be high unlike in past elections when separatists opposed to Indian rule boycotted polls, demanding the independence of Kashmir or its merger with neighboring Pakistan.
Islamabad controls a smaller portion of the mountainous territory, divided since the end of British colonial rule in 1947, and like India claims it in full.
Polling in the first stage of the three-phased election — staggered due to security challenges — was held on September 18 when 61 percent of voters cast their ballots.
About 500,000 Indian troops are deployed in the region where a 35-year insurgency has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels, including dozens this year.
Diplomats from 16 foreign missions including the United States and Russia were set to arrive in Srinagar to observe the vote, according to the Indian Express newspaper.
A high unemployment rate and anger at the 2019 changes have animated campaigning and regional parties have promised to fight for restoration of autonomy.
Key decisions will remain in New Delhi’s hands, however, including security and appointing Kashmir’s governor.
Delhi will also have the power to override legislation passed by the 90-seat assembly.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) says the changes to the territory’s governance have delivered a new era of peace to Kashmir and rapid economic growth, claims the regional parties vehemently dismiss.
The territory, officially titled Jammu and Kashmir, is split.
Modi campaigned for support in the Kashmir valley, promising a return of statehood without giving a timeline, while his powerful interior and defense ministers wooed voters in the Hindu-majority Jammu areas.
Critics have accused Modi’s BJP of encouraging a surge of independent candidates — nearly half of the 862 contestants — in Muslim-majority areas to split the vote.
While the BJP has fielded candidates in all the constituencies of Hindu-majority Jammu, it is fighting only from about a third of the seats in the Kashmir valley.
The last round of voting will be held on October 1 with results expected a week later.
Security high as Indian Kashmir votes in round two of regional polls
https://arab.news/9yckj
Security high as Indian Kashmir votes in round two of regional polls
- Turnout is expected to be high unlike in past elections when separatists opposed boycotted polls
- Polling in the first stage of the three-phased election was held on September 18 with 61% turnout
Cuba’s president says no current talks with the US following Trump’s threats
- Cuba was receiving an estimated 35,000 barrels a day from Venezuela before the US attacked, along with some 5,500 barrels daily from Mexico and roughly 7,500 from Russia, according to Jorge Piñón of the Energy Institute
HAVANA: Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Monday that his administration is not in talks with the US government, a day after President Donald Trump threatened the Caribbean island in the wake of the US attack on Venezuela.
Díaz-Canel posted a flurry of brief statements on X after Trump suggested that Cuba “make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not say what kind of deal.
Díaz-Canel wrote that for “relations between the US and Cuba to progress, they must be based on international law rather than hostility, threats, and economic coercion.”
He added: “We have always been willing to hold a serious and responsible dialogue with the various US governments, including the current one, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of International Law, and mutual benefit without interference in internal affairs and with full respect for our independence.”
His statements were reposted by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez on X.
A key lifeline severed
On Sunday, Trump wrote that Cuba would no longer live off oil and money from Venezuela, which the US attacked on Jan. 3 in a stunning operation that killed 32 Cuban officers and led to the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro.
Cuba was receiving an estimated 35,000 barrels a day from Venezuela before the US attacked, along with some 5,500 barrels daily from Mexico and roughly 7,500 from Russia, according to Jorge Piñón of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, who tracks the shipments.
On Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum once again declined to provide data on current oil shipments or say whether such shipments would increase when Venezuelan supplies end. She insisted that the aid “has been ongoing for a long time; it’s not new.”
Sheinbaum said Mexico’s fuel supply to Cuba is not a concern for her country because “there is enough oil” — even though production of state-owned oil company Petróleos Mexicanos is steadily declining. She reiterated that her government is willing to facilitate dialogue between the US and Cuba if both agree.
Even with oil shipments from Venezuela, widespread blackouts have persisted across Cuba given fuel shortages and a crumbling electric grid. Experts worry a lack of petroleum would only deepen the island’s multiple crises that stem from an economic paralysis during the COVID-19 pandemic and a radical increase in US sanctions following the first Trump administration, which aim to force a change in Cuba’s political model.
The communist government has said US sanctions cost the country more than $7.5 billion between March 2024 and February 2025, a staggering sum for an island whose tourism revenue reached some $3 billion annually at its peak in the previous decade.
The crisis also has triggered a large wave of migration primarily to the United States, where Cubans enjoyed immigration privileges as exiles. Those privileges were curtailed before Trump closed US borders.
‘They didn’t even bring Cuban coffee’
The situation between the US and Cuba is “very sad and concerning,” said Andy S. Gómez, retired dean of the School of International Studies and senior fellow in Cuban Studies at the University of Miami.
He said he sees Díaz-Canel’s latest comments “as a way to try and buy a little bit of time for the inner circle to decide what steps it’s going to take.”
Gómez said he doesn’t visualize Cuba reaching out to US officials right now.
“They had every opportunity when President (Barack) Obama opened up US diplomatic relations, and yet they didn’t even bring Cuban coffee to the table,” Gómez said. “Of course, these are desperate times for Cuba.”
Michael Galant, senior research and outreach associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., said he believes Cuba might be willing to negotiate.
“Cuba has been interested in finding ways to ease sanctions,” he said. “It’s not that Cuba is uncooperative.”
Galant said topics for discussion could include migration and security, adding that he believes Trump is not in a hurry.
“Trump is hoping to deepen the economic crisis on the island, and there are few costs to Trump to try and wait that out,” he said. “I don’t think it’s likely that there will be any dramatic action in the coming days because there is no rush to come to the table.”
Cuba’s president stressed on X that “there are no talks with the US government, except for technical contacts in the area of migration.”
As tensions remained heightened, life went on as usual for many Cubans, although some were more concerned than others.
Oreidy Guzmán, a 32- year-old food delivery person, said he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to Cubans, “but if something has to happen, the people deserve change.”
Meanwhile, 37-year-old homemaker Meilyn Gómez said that while she doesn’t believe the US would invade Cuba, she was preparing for any possible outcome under Trump: “He’ll find entertainment anywhere.”
The current situation is dominating chatter among Cubans on the island and beyond.
“Cuban people talk and talk,” said 57-year-old bartender Rubén Benítez, “but to be honest, eleven, eight or nine million will take to the streets to defend what little we have left.”
