PTI clinches AJK elections with 25 seats, announces Chief Election Commissioner

MUZAFFARABAD: The ruling party of Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan has won a majority of seats in Azad Jammu and Kashmir assembly, the head of the election commission announced on Monday.

His Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won 25 seats in the 45-seat assembly in Sunday's poll, Chief Election Commissioner Abdul Rashid Sulehria told a news conference.

PTI leading with a wide margin in AJK elections

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) secured 11 seats, while the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), which had previously held a majority in the body, took just six seats.

Kashmir's outgoing Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider, of the PML-N, contested two seats, losing one and winning the other by only 300 votes.

Two local groups each won a single seat, Sulehria said, while the result from one constituency had been withheld.

Sulehria dismissed accusations, mainly from the PML-N, that Khan's party had rigged the election.

"We have fulfilled our promise to conduct free, fair and transparent elections," he told journalists in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Kashmir.

Two workers for Khan's party died in clashes with PPP supporters on election day, police said, but the polls were otherwise peaceful.

Four soldiers involved in securing the vote also died when their vehicle plunged into a mountain ravine, the army said.

Khan congratulated his party's winning candidates and thanked voters in a tweet following the announcement of results.

"I want to thank the (people) ... for placing their trust in the PTI through their votes," he wrote. "We will focus on bringing the (people) out of poverty."