Protests erupt near Pakistan’s China border over vote-rigging claims in Gilgit-Baltistan

Opposition candidates accuse Gilgit-Baltistan’s election commission of manipulating results to favour Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party

Paramilitary reinforcements have been called in after protesters took to the streets, erected barricades and threatened bloodshed

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Protesters block a road with burning debris in Gilgit, capital of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan region, amid allegations of vote rigging in the recent legislative assembly elections. Photo: Tuyyab Babri

Published: 8:18pm, 19 Nov 2020Updated: 9:23pm, 25 Nov 2020

A disputed election in a region of Pakistan bordering China has sparked angry protests, with troops called in to restore order after demonstrators took to the streets and erected barricades in a bid to shut down the regional capital amid claims of vote rigging.

The protests in Gilgit-Baltistan – a remote, impoverished, mountainous part of the larger Kashmir region that marks the starting point of the US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor – are being led by opposition candidates who accuse the local election commission of delaying and manipulating the results of Sunday’s polls to favour Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party.

Tensions have risen because of the unusually long delay in finalising results, which were expected on Tuesday.

On Wednesday the Interior Ministry dispatched paramilitary reinforcements to Gilgit-Baltistan’s Diamer district – where a multibillion-dollar China-backed dam is under construction – after protesters threatening bloodshed blocked the Karakoram Highway, which links Pakistan to China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Women line up to cast their ballots in Gilgit-Baltistan’s legislative assembly elections. Photo: EPA

Opposition candidates dispute the results in two of Diamer’s constituencies amid allegations that many women living there were prevented from voting by patriarchal community councils, in defiance of electoral rules.

Such interference, which is not uncommon in Pakistan’s tribal communities, is supposed to trigger fresh elections in all affected constituencies, yet the Gilgit-Baltistan Election Commission has only ordered that polls be held again in one, where the PTI was narrowly defeated by a candidate from opposition religious party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam. In the other constituency, where a PTI candidate emerged victorious, the results were allowed to stand.

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