Byzantine politics

Sardar Attique Ahmad Khan is set to be elected, unopposed, as the fourth prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir by the present AJK Legislative Assembly in its fourth year, consequent to a bizarre display of Byzantine politics in a region of immense sensitivity to Pakistan.
Confronted with a threat of a no-confidence vote, his outgoing predecessor, Raja Farooq Haider, resigned last week as his supporters deserted him, leaving the field open for Attique's uncontested election. Sardar Attique, too, had fled the field some time back when his erstwhile backers in the assembly decided to ditch him. If there has to be a constitutional cause for curbing 'lotaism', nothing serves better than the AJK politics. He and Sardar Attique belong to same Muslim Conference, but the tail that wags the dog, in this case, is the other smaller political parties and this time it's the AJK People's Party - it supports Sardar Attique against Raja Farooq Haider.
Raja Farooq Haider may not be a very shrewd politician - he had failed to retain the support of his party men in a tainted ambience of underhand deals and corruption - but the charges he has made against forces that engineered his ouster are too serious to be written off as the wails of a fallen man. No doubt about it that there was a lingering saga of confrontation stemming from the elevation of Riaz Akhter Chaudhry as chief justice and its political fallout.
Of course, this too was an outcome of a bigger game plan as Raja Farooq Haider nurtures quite a few positions on non-political issues that don't seem to be sitting well with Islamabad. For instance, he is opposed to raising the height of the Mangla Dam reservoir; have caveats on the Neelam Hydro-project; thinks that a federal minister gets cuts on transportation of foodgrains to Azad Kashmir from Pakistan; seats in the AJK assembly for Kashmiri migrants; and that the Islamabad-based AJK Council Secretariat has become a den of intrigue against the Azad Kashmir politicians. Possibly, his no-objection to a Mujahideen conference at the time the Indian Foreign Minister Krishna was in Islamabad also cocked up some sensitive ears.
The latest developments in Muzaffarabad, largely conceived in Kashmir House, Islamabad, where the Azad Kashmir leaders spend most of their time, are not very different from before, bred as they are by a culture of narrow political gains. The Pakistani political parties are increasing their influence in Azad Kashmir and a la Gilgit-Baltistan politics and the outcome may favour the PPP. As expected, the PML (N) is all set to offer an alternative. Raja Farooq has succeeded in securing the patronage of Nawaz Sharif, who promised him that the PML (N) would shortly launch its Azad Kashmir chapter. However, there are also developments indicating that Islamabad is getting ready to induct a change of policy for better control. No wonder then, the ousted prime minister of Azad Kashmir was asking for greater autonomy like the one Pakistan gets under the 18th Amendment. Things seem to be in a state of flux, as if the final shape has yet not been marked out.
But that doesn't, in any way, justify overlooking the politics of horse-trading and 'lotaism' in Azad Kashmir. The Kashmiri leaders should prove to be showing greater political maturity by placing the interest of their electorate before their own. How come the leaders elected to serve the people in Azad Kashmir spend most of their time in Islamabad, away from their voters? At the same time, the Federal Government would do well to have as little interference in Azad Kashmir affairs as possible - you may win over a couple of AJK politicians by securing for them berths in power but it not going to win you the hearts and minds of the ordinary people of Azad Kashmir. The mainland political parties should stay away from Azad Kashmir to let the area retain its identity as part of the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir, awaiting implementation of the UN resolutions in support of the Kashmiris' right of self-determination.