Gilgit-Baltistan does not need another season of political theatre. After 22 years without elected local bodies, the August 2 schedule should have turned politics towards streets, drains, schools, clinics, markets, tourism and jobs: the daily grammar of governance. Instead, with the Assembly election fast approaching, allegations and counter-allegations are crowding out the only question that should matter: who can deliver stability and development in a region that cannot afford another turn of the wheel?
GB’s politics must be read through its geography and administrative reality. This strategic, mountainous region has fragile connectivity, severe winters and large development gaps. Its voters are not naïve. They know well that slogans do not build roads or keep lights on. Because GB’s constitutional and fiscal arrangements remain deeply tied to Islamabad, federal coordination often becomes the practical hinge of its politics. Its electoral history has therefore tended to favour parties that can work with the centre, or at least command credible access to it.
The campaign speeches this week have shown three competing claims. PMLN President Nawaz Sharif, addressing supporters in Gilgit, lamented the region’s broken infrastructure and said that roads, hospitals, powerhouses and hydropower projects were not favours but “the right of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan.” PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, in Skardu, placed the PPP’s case in a welfare-and-peace frame, saying his party would solve GB’s problems if given a heavy majority. PTI, meanwhile, claims it is being denied a level playing field, even as the GB government has asserted that action was taken over code-of-conduct violations and that no party is being discriminated against. If PTI believes its rights have been violated, it should pursue every legal remedy.
However, what GB does not need is yet another confrontation imported as a campaign model. That formula may produce television heat, but it is ill-suited to a region where communal balance matters. The voter in GB needs someone who understands that development requires budgets, execution and continuity, not viral speeches. If a coalition becomes necessary after June 7, parties that may have to sit together should not burn every bridge before polling day.
The same test of political seriousness is visible in Azad Kashmir. The AJK government’s decision to call a multiparty conference on the 12 refugee seats should be appreciated as a democratic forum designed to bring political parties, elected representatives and stakeholders into one room. The refugee seats are not a slogan to be settled on blocked roads. They involve law, representation, the Interim Constitution, displaced communities and the wider Kashmir dispute. The Joint Awami Action Committee has every right to raise concerns over tariffs, subsidies, privileges and representation. But if the state opens a door for talks, responsible leadership walks through it. It goes without saying that the government, sitting on the treasury benches, must remain measured, transparent and lawful. Any overreach will only feed the politics of grievance. Still, rights movements also have responsibilities. Public leadership means solving problems, not pushing ordinary citizens into avoidable hardship. *