by Fazal Ali Saadi
The Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly elections held on June 7, 2026, were largely peaceful, barring isolated violence and complaints of irregularities in Astore and Diamer Districts where in some polling stations repolling has been ordered by the election commission. Now the real political maneuvering begins. Parties scramble to form the next government. But the true test lies ahead. In the coming days, the shape of the incoming government will decide not just who holds power, but whether they can deliver stable governance and keep their promises to the electorate.
According to the Chief Election Commissioner, overall turnout was around 70% of the 963,034 registered voters—far higher than Pakistan’s 2024 general election turnout of 47.6%, and also above Gilgit-Baltistan’s previous assembly turnouts (60.7% in 2009, 61.3% in 2015, and 48.1% in 2020). However, some constituencies saw lower participation; in Hunza, for instance, turnout was 47% of the over 50,000 registered voters.
Despite constitutional uncertainty, political distrust, and repeated disappointments, people came out in large numbers. They showed they have not withdrawn from politics; they still want a say in how power is shaped. They did not vote because the system earned their trust; they voted because they wanted to intervene in a system that denies them full power.
The candidate field reflected the same mixed picture. Out of 403 candidates, only 131 represented mainstream Pakistan-based parties or a handful of local nationalist and progressive ones, while the remaining 272 ran as independents. Voters were not just choosing parties, they were also weighing local figures, old loyalties, and new claims to representation.
Women’s participation remained one of the weakest aspects of the election. Despite constituting nearly half of the electorate, only eight women contested general seats. According to unofficial results, none secured a direct win. While reserved seats play an important role, they cannot be substitute of genuine political contest. Political parties rarely nominate women for winnable constituencies, even when women do run, party structures often fail to mobilise voters in their support. In effect, women are treated as voters to be rallied, not as leaders to be elected.
Unofficial and provisional results show a fragmented assembly with no single party securing a sweeping mandate. The Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) has emerged as the single largest force, winning 10 of the 24 directly elected seats — putting it in pole position for coalition talks. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) follows with six seats. Independents have won five seats including two backed by PTI and Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen has taken one.
With a 33-member House, comprising 24 directly elected seats and nine reserved seats for women, technocrats and professionals, government formation now becomes the most sensitive stage of the election. The next government will not be shaped by direct seats alone. Reserved-seat calculations, negotiations with independents will prove decisive.
This is where the real game often begins in Gilgit-Baltistan, not on polling day but after. People vote, but power is too often shaped later somewhere else in Islamabad following a familiar pattern. When the PPP ruled in Islamabad in 2009, it also dominated Gilgit-Baltistan. When PML-N came to power at the Centre in 2015, it won here too. And when the PTI governed Islamabad in 2020, it emerged as the largest party in G-B and formed a government with independents’ support. The pattern became even clearer after PTI’s fall at the centre: its government in G-B soon fractured.
The 2026 election must not follow the same script. A high-turnout mandate can’t be allowed to become raw material for post-election engineering. Whoever forms the next government must do so openly, on the basis of a public programme, not through convenience, pressure or private bargaining.
If the PPP is to lead the next government, it should not treat this as an ordinary victory. It may have emerged as the largest party, but it still lacks a clear majority. Should it seek support from independents, and reserved seats, that support must be tied to a clear and binding agenda. That agenda must include constitutional rights, fiscal authority, land protection, climate resilience, youth employment, efficient digital and internet rights, women’s participation and a genuine empowered local government.
There is another possibility that must be discouraged: a PPP-PML-N coalition in Gilgit-Baltistan formed simply because the two parties are allies at the federal level. Such an arrangement might seem convenient to party managers in Islamabad, it could be presented as stability or consensus. But in Gilgit-Baltistan, it would carry a serious democratic cost. If the largest party and the main runner-up sit together in government, the Assembly would be left without a meaningful opposition.
That would be especially damaging given Gilgit-Baltistan’s already weak constitutional position and limited legislative power and lack of accountability and judicial system. If the main parties accommodate each other into government, who will question delays in constitutional reform and internal autonomy? Who will scrutinise land, and revenue policies? Who will demand local government elections? Who will challenge opaque deals over tourism, minerals, hydropower and public appointments?
Gilgit-Baltistan does not need a government of convenience copied from Islamabad. It needs one that reflects its own mandate. A strong opposition would serve the region better than a broad coalition that leaves citizens without a serious forum for dissent.
Independents, too, face a critical test. They can either become instruments of the old post-election market or act as custodians of the public mandate.
Beyond the party tally, some constituency results carry deeper meaning. In Ghizer, prominent nationalist leader Nawaz Khan Naji – winner of three consecutive elections — lost to Syed Jalal Ali Shah of the PPP. His defeat does not signal the disappearance of the national and constitutional question. Rather, it suggests that voters may be separating the rights issue from older personalities and demanding new forms of representation.
The Awami Workers Party Gilgit-Baltistan (AWPG-B) also suffered a poor result. The Left wing party had fielded four candidates — one in Hunza, where Asif Sakhi, a young popular contender, stood for second time and secured 2904 votes, an improvement of 500 votes on the previous election. The AWPGB ran two aspirants in Ghizer including Aslam Inqilabi, a noted activist, and one in Skardu, but all were defeated. This does not render their consistent and pioneering struggle, or their agenda, irrelevant. Land and resource capture, labour, ecology and constitutional rights issues remain at the heart of public anxiety. Still, the outcome underscores that progressive politics continues to struggle to translate a populist agenda into constituency-level power.
At the same time, the election revealed clear signs of local and generational disruption. In Ghizer-Yasin, young Aman Ali Amir, a young independent candidate, defeated older PPP and PML-N figures. In Hunza, PTI-backed independent Naik Nam Karim won against PPP and PML-N rivals. Voters in some areas were clearly willing to move beyond old party structures and support candidates rooted in local credibility.
The message, however, is not simple one. While the PPP may have emerged as the largest party, but the constituency map reveals a restless electorate. Nationalist politics suffered a setback in Ghizer and the organised Left failed to win any representation. Meanwhile, in Yasin and Hunza, young independents –along with PTI-backed aspirants — disrupted old political calculations. Loyalty can no longer be taken for granted: not by nationalist veterans, not by mainstream parties, not by ideological groups, and not by electables.
The first institutional test is transparency. Complaints about delays in release of Form-45, voter-list irregularities, and last minute polling-station changes cannot be brushed aside. To pass this test, the EC must publish polling-station-level results, ensure access to all required forms, preserve election material and address grievances through a credible process.
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The second test concerns government formation. Voters have a right to know how the next government is being assembled. Which independents are joining which side and on what terms? Are they backing a clear programme, or merely entering a power-sharing arrangement? A government formed behind closed doors can’t claim the full moral weight of a public mandate.
Wheat subsidy or development schemes cannot mask this contradiction forever. A subsidy is no substitute for local ownership; grants for non-development spending are no substitute for fiscal authority. The new Assembly should, therefore, begin by passing a resolution on resolving the longstanding issue of constitutional rights, demanding a time-bound framework on this core issue, representation, fiscal powers, judicial rights and voice in national decision-making.
The Assembly must also confront a democratic failure normalised for too long: Gilgit-Baltistan has been without elected local government since 2004. For more than two decades, towns, valleys and villages have had no elected institutions closest to daily life. Water supply, sanitation, roads, waste management, basic services, tourism pressure and disaster response have remained largely under bureaucratic control.
The Chief Election Commissioner has now announced that long-delayed local government elections are scheduled for 2 August 2026. The new government must ensure these elections are actually held, not postponed again under political or administrative excuses.
Land, ecology and youth must be central to the next government’s agenda. Across Gilgit-Baltistan, anxieties over communal ownership, state land, minerals, tourism investment and outside capital are growing. Land in the mountains is not merely property, it is livelihood, inheritance, identity and collective security. No tourism, mining, hydropower or hotel project should move ahead without local consent, benefit-sharing and legal protection of communal rights.
Climate change is already part of life in the mountains. Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), landslides, erratic weather and water stress are damaging roads, bridges, homes and farms. Glaciers are discussed globally, but people are often treated only as victims or case studies. They must be treated as decision-makers.
Young people are educated, connected and politically aware, yet many remain jobless or underemployed. A serious government must link youth employment with tourism regulation, digital work, technical education, renewable energy, local enterprise, agriculture, research and culture. Public jobs alone cannot absorb the coming generation.
A 70 per cent turnout should not be used as decoration for legitimacy. It should be read as a demand. People did not vote in such numbers to watch another round of post-election bargaining. They voted because they still believe politics can be made answerable.
Gilgit-Baltistan needs politics that changes the terms of power; leaders who honour their election promises after the ballots are counted, not those who speak of rights during campaigns and retreat into silence, ambiguity or opposition afterwards. Above all, it needs a government that understands one thing clearly: a high turnout is not consent to the old order. It is a demand to end it.
Fazal Saadi, hailing from Ishkoman, is a development practitioner and researcher interested in understanding development-induced challenges of poverty and inequality.
The High Asia Herald is a member of High Asia Media Group — a window to High Asia and Central Asia