Pakistan Broke Its Own Election in Kashmir

Before the crackdown, before the troops and the blackout and the bodies, there was an agreement. The Pakistani government — both the federal administration and the Kashmiri leadership — sat down with the Joint Awami Action Committee, the grassroots civil society alliance that had been leading protests across Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and acknowledged its demands as legitimate ^[1]. The JAAC wanted electricity at production cost and an end to the diversion of local hydropower to the national grid — grievances that had been building for years, through peaceful sit-ins and wheel-jam strikes and market shutdowns, through the deaths of three protesters in Muzaffarabad in May 2024 and twelve more in October 2025 ^[2]. The agreement was the state's own recognition that the movement had a point. Then, on June 5, the state did something else. Instead of implementing the agreement, it declared the JAAC a terrorist organization ^[3]. The International Human Rights Foundation called the designation a "disproportionate and unlawful violation of the right to freedom of association" made on "vague grounds" ^[3].

Branding a civil society body as 'terrorist' on vague grounds, while simultaneously sealing the region from outside scrutiny, constitutes a disproportionate and unlawful violation of the right to freedom of association. — International Human Rights Foundation

The timing of the pivot is hard to separate from another development. In May, Pakistan had committed to replacing untargeted electricity subsidies with a targeted system as a condition for a $1.2 billion IMF climate loan, with full implementation required by January 2027 ^[4]. The JAAC's core demand — electricity at production cost — was structurally incompatible with that commitment. No document says the government chose the IMF over the agreement. But the two things could not both be true, and the state broke the agreement, not the loan condition. What followed was not law enforcement. On June 7, the PoK Supreme Court ruled twelve reserved legislative seats unconstitutional ^[3]. The JAAC-led protests swelled. Field Marshal Asim Munir, the army chief, ordered "maximum force" ^[5].

The region is currently under total military occupation, while the local leadership has fled in fear. — Amjad Yousuf

The military deployed 26,000 personnel with live ammunition and snipers. In Rawalakot, Punjab Rangers shelled Dhamol village, killing 30 civilians, and blocked food supply routes ^[5]. Across the region, at least 32 were killed in the initial crackdown from June 8 to 16, over 500 arrested, and a 12-day internet blackout sealed the region from outside scrutiny ^[3]. By the time the elections approached in late July, India's foreign ministry put the civilian death toll above 100 ^[6]. The state had a law-and-order justification it could point to. The Rawalakot commissioner reported that four police officers and one passerby were killed by attackers using automatic rifles and petrol bombs ^[7]. But the scale of the response — more than a hundred civilians dead against four security-force deaths, 26,000 troops against a civil disobedience movement — is what Amnesty International flagged when it called the crackdown "an alarming deterioration of human rights" and urged the government to "resume peaceful talks and negotiations immediately" ^[7].

violent and sweeping crackdown on protests in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir — including an internet shutdown, mass arbitrary arrests, and deadly use of force — continues an alarming deterioration of human rights in the region — Amnesty International

The elections went ahead on schedule. The Chief Election Commissioner publicly guaranteed peaceful and transparent polls, and the Army was deployed for "security assistance" ^[8]. But the process was already hollow. The PTI, the main opposition, boycotted entirely. Its PoK secretary general, Mir Atiq ur Rehman, called the election a mockery of fraud and opacity ^[9].

The rulers must come to their senses; issues are not resolved through coercion, violence, and the use of force. The voice of the people must be heard. — Mir Atiq ur Rehman

What was more damaging was what happened inside the ruling coalition. The Pakistan Peoples Party, a governing partner at the federal level, did participate — but then alleged that polling agents were forcibly removed from stations and armed individuals influenced voting through fraudulent ballots, specifically in LA-12 and Kotli ^[10]. PPP leader Raja Pervaiz Ashraf called for re-polling under military supervision ^[10]. Bilawal Bhutto went further.

I tell them, don’t boycott, contest the elections, do your work. — Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

The PPP's Saeed Ghani accused the PML-N of "historically relying on electoral manipulation and military support" ^[8]. A governing coalition's own partner was threatening to bring down the federal government over an election it had just contested. Then, on August 2, the second phase of voting collapsed logistically. Road blockades in Kotli and Muzaffarabad prevented election staff and materials from reaching polling stations, forcing postponement in Kotli ^[11]. Security forces opened fire again on civilians in Muzaffarabad's Plate area, killing three more ^[12]. Protests spread to Islamabad, Karachi, and Rawalpindi, where police baton-charged and arrested students at the Press Club ^[11]. It was around this point that Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said something that captured the arc the state had traveled.

I put the protesters of PojK in the same category as India and consider them as enemies — Khawaja Asif

A government that had once sat across a table from the JAAC and acknowledged its demands as legitimate was now, through its defence minister, branding the people of the region as enemies — in the same category as a foreign adversary. The JAAC, for its part, has not been suppressed. Its 50-day sit-in at Dreak, maintained by women and children, continues. The movement declared that protesters would "under no circumstances betray the blood of their martyrs" ^[9].

At Dreak, where a protest sit-in was held for 50 days, women and children are now maintaining the sit-in, and it will continue until the movement’s recognised demands are acted upon. The Kashmiri people, united as one nation, have resolved that under no circumstances will they betray the blood of their martyrs — Joint Awami Action Committee

The standoff now has no obvious resolution. The sit-in persists. The IMF deadline of January 2027 approaches, and with it the subsidy cuts that are incompatible with the JAAC's core demand. And the state has foreclosed the only mechanism — negotiation — that could resolve both. It proscribed the people it had already agreed to talk to, then killed more than a hundred of them, then held an election its own coalition partner called fraudulent. There is no path back to the table that does not require the state to repudiate what it just did.