MUZAFFARABAD (Web Desk) – Faisal Mumtaz Rathore has been elected the new Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir after a no-confidence motion passed with a resounding majority in the Legislative Assembly on Monday.
In Muzaffarabad, the no-confidence motion, submitted by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), secured 36 votes in a session attended by 38 members. The full assembly consists of 53 members, with 27 votes required to elect a prime minister. Rathore now becomes the 16th Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the fourth to hold the office under the current assembly.
The motion followed mounting political pressure on former Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwar-ul-Haq. A message had been conveyed urging him to resign, which he declined, prompting the PPP to move forward with the no-confidence process. President Asif Ali Zardari had already approved the submission of the motion against Anwar-ul-Haq last month.
In the lead-up to the vote, the PPP consolidated its numbers in the assembly. On 26th October, the party hosted a dinner at Sindh House in Islamabad, attended by 27 members of the Legislative Assembly. The same day, ten ministers associated with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf forward bloc met PPP leader Faryal Talpur and formally joined the party. This shift gave the PPP a simple majority in the house.
Following the dinner, Anwar-ul-Haq was once again urged to step down, with the message that the motion would proceed if he did not. After the political realignments, the Anwar-ul-Haq group was reduced to seven members. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf retained five seats, while the Muslim Conference and the Jammu Kashmir Peoples Party held one seat each.
