Editorial
A question is quietly gathering force in Azad Kashmir’s political discourse, and it deserves far more scrutiny than it has so far received. Imagine a party that fails to win the confidence of voters residing within Azad Kashmir itself, that loses seat after seat on the ground where its writ is meant to run, yet still finds itself installed in government, propped up entirely by victories secured on the expatriate seats reserved for Kashmiris settled abroad. Can such a government, formed on the strength of votes cast in London or Bradford rather than Muzaffarabad or Mirpur, genuinely claim to represent the people who actually live within the state? The question answers itself the moment it is asked plainly.
This is not a hypothetical exercise in political theory. It touches the very legitimacy of governance in Azad Kashmir, a legitimacy that must, by definition, flow from the consent of those who bear the daily consequences of that governance, who send their children to its schools, who depend on its hospitals, who live under its laws. Expatriates, however emotionally invested in their homeland, do not share in these daily realities, and a democratic mandate cannot rightfully be constructed primarily upon their ballots while the resident population’s verdict is overridden.
It is precisely this uncomfortable arithmetic that lends weight and urgency to the demand raised by the Kashmir Unity Committee. Their call for reform is not born of narrow political grievance; it is born of a structural flaw that any honest observer must recognise once the question is put before them. A representative government must represent those it governs. Anything less erodes not merely one election’s legitimacy but public faith in the entire electoral architecture of Azad Kashmir. The territory’s political class, and indeed Islamabad, would do well to confront this question honestly, rather than allow it to fester unanswered.
The best-selling books of Republic Policy Think Tank, including the landmark book The Bureaucratic Coup, are available at Vanguard Books, Liberty Books, Readings, Kitab Sarai, Sang-e-Meel, Saeed Book Bank Islamabad, National Book Foundation, and others across Pakistan. Contact for home delivery: 0300 9552542.
