Masood Khan elected as President of Azad Kashmir

Masood Khan was nominated by the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz  (PML-N)  and secured 42 votes while his counterpart Chaudhry Latif Akbar of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) secured six votes.  He will replace  Sardar Yaqoob who retires on 25th August after completing his five-year constitutional term.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Muslim Conference had boycotted the presidential elections. In a joint press conference, the parties said that they want Masood Khan to be elected unopposed but the PML-N has made a deal with the PPP to field their candidates.

Earlier, a joint session of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly and Kashmir Council was convened to elect the President. Forty-eight members of the Legislative Assembly and seven members of Kashmir Council exercised their right to vote to elect the president. The polling for the election began at the Lodging Hall of AJK Legislative Assembly at 10:00 AM and concluded at 3:00 PM.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had won majority in the Legislative Assembly Elections in the region on July 21 this year. The party bagged 31 seats in election of 41 members. Seven members of the assembly were elected on the reserved seats on the basis of the results of the general elections.

Masood Khan is a former diplomat who has served in various ambassadorial positions around the world. He joined the Foreign Service in 1980 and went on to serve in various diplomatic positions including Beijing (China), The Hague (Netherlands), New York and Washington D.C. (United States).

He served as the Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from August 2003 to March 2005, and the Ambassador to China between September 2008 and September 2012, and as Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations between October 11, 2012 and February 07, 2015. He has also served as the Director General of Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad.