Pak not sincere on PoK elections: MEA

The government today indicated that Islamabad’s disqualification of political parties and candidates who did not declare their allegiance to the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan, from contesting the forthcoming elections in PoK, exposed the ‘‘insincerity of Pakistan’s proclaimed policy that the future of Jammu and Kashmir should be decided by its people’’.

‘‘This confirms that the elections in the so-called ‘AJK’, scheduled to be held on July 11, will be a replay of the earlier exercises, in which the people did not have the freedom to vote for political parties and candidates of their choice,’’ the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said today.

He went on to add that the disqualification was ‘‘particularly glaring’’ in the light of the proposal made by President Musharraf of introducing self-governance in Jammu and Kashmir.

‘‘Besides, the forthcoming elections in the so-called ‘AJK’ underline the absence of any form of representative government in the so-called ‘Northern Areas’ of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the residents of which are deprived of even their basic right to vote, as elections have never been held there,’’ the spokesperson said.