2021 Azad Kashmiri general election

General elections were held in Azad Kashmir on 25 July 2021 after the expiry of the 5-year term of the previous Legislative Assembly.^[1] The elections were held in 33 constituencies of Azad Kashmir and 12 constituencies of the refugees of Jammu and Kashmir in Pakistan.^[2]

2021 Azad Kashmir general election

← 2016 25 July 2021 2026 →
All 53 seats in the Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly 27 seats needed for a majority
Registered	3,220,793
Turnout	61.30% (0.90%)
First party Second party   Leader Abdul Qayyum Khan Niazi Chaudhry Latif Akbar Party PTI PPP Leader's seat Poonch & Sudhnoti-I Muzaffarabad-V Last election 2 seats, 12.7% 4 seats, 21.2% Seats won 32 12 Seat change 30 8 Popular vote 613,590 349,895 Percentage 31.4% 17.9% Swing 18.7pp 3.3pp   Third party Fourth party   Leader Raja Farooq Haider Attique Ahmed Khan Party PML(N) AJKMC Leader's seat Muzaffarabad-VI Muzaffarabad-VII (lost) Bagh-I Last election 36 seats, 44.4% 3 seats, 10.3% Seats won 7 1 Seat change 29 2 Popular vote 491,091 153,861 Percentage 25.1% 7.9% Swing 19.3pp 2.4pp
Map of Azad Kashmir showing Assembly Constituencies
Prime Minister before election Raja Farooq Haider PML(N) Elected Prime Minister Abdul Qayyum Khan Niazi PTI

By an early estimate, over 2.82 million people of Azad Kashmir were registered to vote; of which 1.59 million were male voters, while 1.30 million were female voters.^[3] By the time of the election, the number of registered voters had increased to 3,220,793.^[4]

A total of 724 candidates stood for 45 general seats this year. 579 candidates competed for the 33 constituencies within Azad Kashmir, while the remaining 145 competed for the 12 refugee constituencies in Pakistan.^[5]

Background

In current elections The PTI won 26, the PPP 11 and PML N 6. In addition, AJ&K MC won 1 seats, JK PPP 1 seat.

Following these results, Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf was able to form a comfortable majority government, controlling 26 general seats and 6 reserved/technocrat seats, giving them 32 out of the 53 seats in the assembly.

Addition of new seats

4 new seats were added in Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly. Muzaffarabad, Neelum, Sudhanoti/Poonch and Kotli districts gained an additional seats each, hence, the number of members in the Assembly of Azad Kashmir was elevated from 49 to 53. Therefore the new amount of seats needed for a majority became 27.^[6][7]

Results

32	12	7	1	1
PTI	PPP	PML(N)	AJKMC	JKPP

Vote Share of different parties in the election.

1. PTI (31.4%)
2. PML-N (25.1%)
3. PPP (17.9%)
4. AJKMC (7.86%)
5. JKPP (6.08%)
6. TLP (4.94%)
7. IND (6.80%)

Seat Share of different parties in the election.

1. PTI (60.4%)
2. PPP (22.6%)
3. PML-N (13.2%)
4. AJKMC (1.89%)
5. JKPP (1.89%)

The polls were open across Azad Kashmir and Pakistan from 8:00 to 17:00 PST. The results of started to pour in after poll closings in the evening. The below table shows election results by political party.^[8]

Party		Votes	%	Seats
				General	Women	Ulema Technocrat and Overseas	Total	Change
	Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf	613,590	31.35	26	3	3	32	30
	Pakistan Peoples Party	349,895	17.88	11	1	0	12	9
	Pakistan Muslim League (N)	491,091	25.09	6	1	0	7	24
	All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference	153,861	7.86	1	0	0	1	2
	Jammu Kashmir Peoples Party	119,048	6.08	1	0	0	1	1
	Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan	96,697	4.94	0	0	0	0
	Independents	133,136	6.80	0	0	0	0
Total		1,957,318	100.00	45	5	3	53	4
Valid votes		1,957,318	99.14
Invalid/blank votes		17,000	0.86
Total votes		1,974,318	100.00
Registered voters/turnout		3,220,793	61.30
Source: EC-AJK (Party Positions), [citation needed] (everything else)

By constituency

Constituency		Winner					Runner-up					Margin	Registered Voters	Votes Cast	Voter Turnout
District	Name	Candidate	Party		Votes	%	Candidate	Party		Votes	%
Mirpur	LA-1	Azhar Sadiq		PTI	14,233	37.08%	Chaudhry Masood Khalid		PML(N)	7,609	19.82%	6,624	93,480	38,386	41.06%
	LA-2	Chaudhry Qasim Majeed		PPP	10,377	28.63%	Zafar Anwar		PTI	9,110	25.13%	1,267	84,985	36,250	42.65%
	LA-3	Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry		PTI	18,703	43.51%	Muhammad Saeed		PML(N)	15,556	36.19%	3,147	85,917	42,985	50.03%
	LA-4	Chaudhry Arshad Hussain		PTI	18,703	44.66%	Rukhsar Ahmed		PML(N)	20,984	41.16%	1,784	87,040	50,984	58.58%
Bhimber	LA-5	Waqar Ahmed Noor		PML(N)	21,799	36.54%	Pervaiz Ashraf		PPP	15,583	26.12%	6,216	82,620	59,666	72.22%
	LA-6	Chaudhry Ali Shan Soni		PTI	24,946	39.80%	Muhammad Razzaq		IND	16,640	26.55%	8,306	92,888	62,681	67.48%
	LA-7	Chaudhry Anwarul Haq		PTI	38,303	49.13%	Chaudhry Tariq Farooq		PML(N)	32,245	41.36%	6,058	112,029	77,967	69.60
Kotli	LA-8	Zaffar Iqbal Malik		PTI	17,299	36.53%	Malik Muhammad Nawaz Khan		AJKMC	12,107	25.57%	5,192	73,121	47,351	64.76%
	LA-9	Chaudhry Javed Iqbal Budhanvi		PPP	24,276	43.35%	Sardar Muhammad Naeem Khan		AJKMC	19,484	34.79%	4,792	84,622	56,000	66.18%
	LA-10	Chaudhry Muhammad Yaseen		PPP	9,696	21.70%	Malik Muhammad Yousaf		PTI	9,507	21.28%	189	70,533	44,674	63.34%
	LA-11	Chaudhry Muhammad Ikhlaq		PTI	25,201	36.75%	Raja Muhammad Naseer		PML(N)	24,288	35.42%	913	105,827	68,581	64.80%
	LA-12	Chaudhry Muhammad Yaseen		PPP	21,527	31.71%	Muhammad Riasat Khan		PML(N)	20,081	29.58%	1,446	106,428	67,880	63.78%
	LA-13	Nisar Ansar		PTI	23,340	37.53%	Muhammad Waleed		PPP	17,554	28.22%	5,786	96,220	62,194	64.64%
Bagh	LA-14	Attique Ahmed Khan		AJKMC	25,389	37.65%	Muhammad Latif Khalique		PTI	17,056	25.29%	8,333	102,491	67,437	65.80%
	LA-15	Sardar Tanveer Ilyas		PTI	19,825	34.03%	Sardar Ziaul Qamar		PPP	14,558	24.99%	5,267	96,561	58,257	60.33%
	LA-16	Sardar Mir Akbar Khan		PTI	23,563	41.46%	Sardar Qamar uz Zaman Khan		PPP	23,267	40.94%	296	87,814	56,828	64.71%
	LA-17	Raja Faisal Mumtaz Rathore		PPP	30,085	41.96%	Chaudhry Muhammad Aziz		PML(N)	25,421	35.45%	4,664	97,902	71,035	72.56%
Poonch	LA-18	Abdul Qayyum Khan Niazi		PTI	24,232	40.44%	Chaudhry Muhammad Yasin Gulshan		PML(N)	15,769	26.32%	8,463	94,508	59,921	63.40%
	LA-19	Sardar Aamir Altaf Khan		PML(N)	13,413	25.69%	Saood bin Sadiq		PPP	12,517	23.97%	896	85,778	52,221	60.88%
	LA-20	Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob Khan		PPP	11,925	32.98%	Abdul Rasheed Khan		PML(N)	4,883	13.50%	7,042	64,099	36,162	56.42%
	LA-21	Hassan Ibrahim Khan		JKPP	8,190	23.46%	Tahir Anwar Khan		PML(N)	6,198	17.75%	1,992	88,220	34,915	39.58%
	LA-22	Shahida Saghir		PTI	16,962	38.11%	Asad Ibrahim Khan		JKPP	10,582	23.77%	6,380	84,676	44,511	52.57%
Sudhnoti	LA-23	Sardar Muhammad Hussain Khan		PTI	22,519	32.85%	Muhammad Najeeb Naqi Khan		PML(N)	19,575	28.55%	2,944	107,511	68,561	63.77%
	LA-24	Sardar Faheem Akhtar		PTI	30,727	47.26%	Sardar Farooq Ahmed Tahir		PML(N)	24,363	37.40%	6,404	98,539	65,147	66.11%
Neelum	LA-25	Shah Ghulam Qadir		PML(N)	14,341	33.24%	Mian Abdul Waheed		PPP	12,400	28.74%	1,941	64,231	43,143	67.17%
	LA-26	Mian Abdul Waheed		PPP	18,870	44.48%	Raja Muhammad Ilyas Khan		PTI	13,294	31.34%	5,576	58,970	42,424	71.94%
Muzaffarabad	LA-27	Sardar Muhammad Javed		PPP	26,441	43.17%	Mir Attique ur Rehman		PTI	19,677	32.12%	6,674	87,706	61,254	69.84%
	LA-28	Syed Bazal Ali Naqvi		PPP	26,011	43.32%	Chaudhry Shahzad Mehmood		PTI	21,873	36.43%	4,138	81,511	60,037	73.66%
	LA-29	Khawaja Farooq Ahmed		PTI	13,337	30.83%	Syed Iftikhar Gillani		PML(N)	10,557	24.40%	2,780	63,594	43,263	68.03%
	LA-30	Chaudhry Muhammad Rasheed		PTI	18,119	44.31%	Mustafa Bashir Abbasi		PML(N)	10,490	25.65%	7,629	57,030	40,890	71.70%
	LA-31	Chaudhry Latif Akbar		PPP	22,824	33.56%	Saqib Majeed Raja		AJKMC	21,481	31.58%	1,343	106,580	68,015	63.82%
Hattian Bala	LA-32	Raja Farooq Haider		PML(N)	15,598	32.31%	Muhammad Ashfaq Zaffar		PPP	15,204	31.49%	394	70,865	48,278	68.13%
	LA-33	Dewan Ali Khan Chughtai		PTI	26,474	54.08%	Raja Farooq Haider		PML(N)	14,384	29.38%	12,090	67,868	48,953	72.13%
Jammu & Others	LA-34	Riaz Ahmed Gujjar		PTI	4,320	41.41%	Nasir Hussain Dar		PML(N)	3,545	33.98%	775	18,542	10,433	56.54%
	LA-35	Maqbool Ahmed Gujjar		PTI	18,934	41.38%	Chaudhry Muhammad Ismail		PML(N)	16,855	36.84%	2,079	85,247	45,756	55.43%
	LA-36	Hafiz Hamid Raza		PTI	22,096	41.30%	Muhammad Ishaq		PML(N)	20,467	38.26%	1,629	93,804	53,500	57.03%
	LA-37	Muhammad Akmal Sargala		PTI	26,039	42.11%	Muhammad Siddique Chaudhry		PML(N)	25,726	41.61%	313	95,694	61,833	64.62%
	LA-38	Muhammad Akbar Chaudhry		PTI	14,283	40.18%	Zeeshan Ali		PML(N)	8,755	30.76%	5,528	48,504	28,461	58.68%
	LA-39	Raja Muhammad Siddqiue		PML(N)	9,557	42.69%	Nazia Niaz		PTI	7,510	33.54%	2,047	36,455	22,389	61.42%
Kashmir Valley	LA-40	Aamir Abdul Ghaffar Lone		PPP	2,165	61.73%	Muhammad Saleem Butt		PTI	875	24.95%	1,290	5,327	3,507	65.83%
	LA-41	Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din Diwan		PTI	2,326	70.61%	Muhammad Ikram Butt		PML(N)	741	22.50%	1,585	5,050	3,294	66.23%
	LA-42	Muhammad Asim Sharif		PTI	1,254	43.86%	Syed Shoukat Ali Shah		PML(N)	1,205	42.15%	49	4,461	2,859	64.09%
	LA-43	Javed Butt		PTI	782	43.66%	Naseema Khatoon Wani		PML(N)	720	40.20%	62	2,457	1,791	72.89%
	LA-44	Muhammad Ahmad Raza Qadri		PML(N)	2,027	44.72%	Mehr un Nisa		AJKMC	1,195	26.36%	832	6,340	4,533	71.50%
	LA-45	Abdul Majid Khan		PTI	3,138	57.10%	Abdul Nasir Khan		IND	2,063	37.54%	1,075	6,951	5,496	79.07%

See also

• List of members of the 10th Legislative Assembly of Azad Kashmir
• Azad Jammu & Kashmir Election Commission
• 2024 Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly election