2016 Azad Kashmiri general election

General elections were held in Azad Kashmir on 21 July 2016 to elect 41 members of the Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly. Polling started at 8:00am and continued until 5:00pm.

Campaign
At least 423 candidates ran for the 41 seats, the main competition being between the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference (AJKMC) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). 5,427 polling stations were set up for the election

Results
2,674,586 people were registered to vote in the elections, of whom 1,190,839 were female and 1,483,747 male.

The PML-N won 31, the PPP three, and PTI two. In addition, the AJKMC won three seats, the Jammu Kashmir Peoples Party (JKPP) won one seat and one seat was won by an independent. After the election, the PML(N) was able to elect its members to three seats reserved for women, one for ulema, and one for overseas. On the other hand, the PPP was able to win one reserved seat for women. Due to a pre-election agreement with the PML(N), the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) was also able to get one of its members elected to a reserved seat for women and another to a reserved seat for technocrats.

Aftermath
Following these results, the PML(N) was able to form a comfortable majority government, electing Raja Farooq Haider as prime minister of Azad Kashmir, controlling 36 out of the 49 seats in the assembly, while also enjoying support from the two JI MLAs. His opponents, Chaudhry Yasin of the PPP and Ghulam Mohiuddin Dewan of the PTI, each garnered five votes each.