DEMOCRACY is a rare commodity when it comes to the patriotic people of Gilgit-Baltistan. We cannot vote for any member of parliament and we have no access to Pakistan’s Supreme Court. We will have no role in Pakistan’s largest democratic exercise on July 25.

We can only be spectators. We demand a proper constitutional status so that we can also vote in elections in 2023. We have been facing this crisis since 1947, but we hope that the next elected government will take this issue seriously.

Waqar Ali
Jutial, Gilgit-Baltistan

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2018