July 09, 2006	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 12, 1427

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MUZAFFARABAD, July 8: Kashmiris living in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan will elect their representatives for the next five years in polls being held on Tuesday while key concerns of voters and candidates remain focussed on reconstruction and rehabilitation.

With only two days left, candidates have geared up their campaign through door-to-door contacts and corner meetings as big public meetings and rallies and display of banners, posters and hoardings has been banned by the election commission to keep election-related expenses within a limit.

However, most of the 369 candidates have circumvented the ban by advertising in the vernacular press, which appear daily with messages to woo the voters.

As the northern AJK districts were badly hit by the quake last year, candidates there have centred their campaign on issues like rehabilitation and reconstruction.

“For me, the rehabilitation of earthquake survivors is a major issue and I have focussed my campaign on it,” said Khawaja Farooq Ahmed, a candidate from the opposition People’s Muslim League.

Mr Ahmed, who lost his father and a nephew and his house in the quake, said voters in his constituency were sensitive about these issues.

“My constituency suffered the worst but ironically it has received the least from either the government or the NGOs. Their plight has gone unnoticed. My aim is to get them their due share,” he said.

A local resident, Maqbool Ahmed, said his priority was to vote for a candidate who he thought could mitigate the sufferings of quake survivors, especially homeless ones.

Most voters, who were weary of the process, also appeared to have developed interest in it.

But there was a possibility that many voters who had left Muzaffarabad after the quake may abstain from voting for different reasons, including lack of transport, although the candidates were working hard to convince them to cast their votes.

The AJK Legislative Assembly has 41 seats, 29 of which fall in the AJK territory, and 12 in Pakistan and represented by refugees from Valley and Jammu regions of occupied Kashmir. However, a relevant law allows Pakistan-based AJK nationals to contest from six seats reserved for Jammu migrants.

According to AJK Election Commission, the number of registered voters is 2,419,598, of them 1,286,060 are men and 1,133,538 women. They included 580,068 voters settled in Pakistan.

An EC official said a total of 369 candidates were contesting the polls, with 197 holding party tickets while 172 of them were independent.

Major political parties included the ruling Muslim Conference headed by Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan, People’s Party headed by Sahibzada Ishaq Zaffar and People’s Muslim League headed by Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry.

The MMA and the MQM and some small parties have also fielded their candidates. However, pro-independence groups, such as the JKLF, are out of the fray. Officials said necessary arrangements had been made to ensure that the polling was held in a ‘free, fair and peaceful’ atmosphere.

The EC has established 3,746 polling stations in Azad Kashmir. Of them 452 haved been designated ‘very sensitive’ and 860 ‘sensitive’, Mr Hasan said.

In Pakistan, 1,112 polling stations have been set up, but it was not clear if the army would also be deployed to maintain law and order situation there.

Our reporter adds from Islamabad: Over 8,000 troops have been positioned in the AJK to assist the civil Administration for maintenance of law and order situation in sensitive and far flung areas during the elections.

According to ISPR, the troops would remain on-call and employed if the situation demanded.