Nawaz Sharif Names Iftikhar Gilani as PML-N’s AJK PM Candidate

MUZAFFARABAD: The race for the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) premiership is continuing, with PML-N President Nawaz Sharif selecting Barrister Syed Iftikhar Ali Gilani as the party’s candidate for the next AJK prime minister.

The nomination was announced a day before the AJK Legislative Assembly is scheduled to elect a new premier. Gilani was selected after the party withdrew its earlier nomination of Shah Ghulam Qadir.

PML-N has a strong position in the assembly and Gilani is considered likely to win Friday’s vote. The party won 25 of the 38 contested general seats in the recent AJK elections and has additional support through reserved seats and other lawmakers.

Barrister Syed Iftikhar Gilani

Gilani’s political career took an unexpected turn during the 2026 elections. He contested the LA-29 Muzaffarabad city constituency but lost to PPP candidate Mukhtar Ahmed Abbasi by around 3,000 votes.

He later secured a reserved technocrat/professionals seat after receiving 26 votes, allowing him to return to the assembly and become a candidate for the AJK premiership.

Gilani has long been active in AJK politics. He served as PML-N AJK Secretary Information and previously represented the region in the Legislative Assembly during the 2011 and 2016 terms. He also served as AJK education minister for several years, including during Raja Farooq Haider’s tenure from around 2016 to 2018.

As education minister, Gilani supported changes to the recruitment process, especially for teachers. In 2018, he advocated recruitment through the National Testing Service (NTS), saying appointments should be based on merit instead of political influence.

He also opposed ad-hoc recruitment and political appointments, saying merit-based hiring could help reduce nepotism in the education department, one of AJK’s largest public-sector employers.

A barrister by profession, Gilani has been described in reports as a law graduate of the University of London. His political activities have mainly focused on Muzaffarabad and PML-N’s organizational structure in AJK.

Gilani’s political career has also faced controversy. In 2023, media reports linked him to arrest warrants over allegations related to a disputed plot and an alleged land-fraud case.

His brother Syed Mehr Gilani and Muzaffarabad Mayor Syed Sikander Gilani were also named in those reports. However, publicly available reports provide limited information about the final outcome, and the allegations should not be considered a conviction or established wrongdoing.

The AJK Legislative Assembly will vote on Friday to decide whether Gilani becomes the region’s next prime minister.