| Election Name: | 2020 Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly Election |
| Country: | Gilgit-Baltistan |
| Type: | parliamentary |
| Previous Election: | 2015 Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly election |
| Previous Year: | 2015 |
| Outgoing Members: | Outgoing Members |
| Elected Members: | Elected Members |
| Next Election: | Next Gilgit Baltistan Assembly election |
| Next Year: | 2025 |
| Seats For Election: | 24 of the 33 seats in the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly |
| Majority Seats: | 17 |
| Registered: | 745,362[1] |
| Turnout: | 48.12% |
| Image1: | Flag of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.svg |
| Party1: | Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf |
| Last Election1: | 1 seat, 11.11% |
| Seats Before1: | 1 |
| Seats1: | 22 |
| Seat Change1: | 21 |
| Popular Vote1: | - |
| Percentage1: | - |
| Swing1: | - |
| Party2: | Pakistan Peoples Party |
| Last Election2: | 1 seat, 18.26% |
| Seats Before2: | 1 |
| Seats2: | 5 |
| Seat Change2: | 4 |
| Popular Vote2: | - |
| Percentage2: | - |
| Swing2: | - |
| Image3: | PMLN 2021 Flag.png |
| Party3: | Pakistan Muslim League (N) |
| Last Election3: | 21 seats, 34.17% |
| Seats Before3: | 21 |
| Seats3: | 3 |
| Seat Change3: | 18 |
| Popular Vote3: | - |
| Percentage3: | - |
| Swing3: | - |
| Chief Minister | |
| Before Election: | Hafiz Hafeezur Rehman |
| Before Party: | PML(N) |
| After Election: | Muhammad Khalid Khurshid Khan |
| After Party: | PTI |
| Ongoing: | Yes |
| Leader1: | Muhammad Khalid Khurshid Khan |
| Leader2: | Amjad Hussain Azar |
| Leader3: | Hafiz Hafeezur Rehman |
| Leaders Seat1: | Astore-I (won) |
| Leaders Seat2: | Gilgit-I (won) Nagar-I (won) |
| Leaders Seat3: | Gilgit-II (lost) |
The 2020 Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly elections were held on 15 November 2020.[2] [3] [4] [5] Elections were held in 24 constituencies, each electing one member to the 3rd Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly.[6] [7] 330 candidates contested these elections,[8] either representing one of the political parties of Gilgit-Baltistan (at the time of the 2020 elections) or being an independent candidate.
The elections were originally scheduled to be held on 18 August 2020,[9] [10] but were postponed in July[11] [12] due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which severely affected Gilgit-Baltistan.
The Pakistan Army was not called in to preside over the polls at the Election, with Mir Afzal, the Caretaker Chief Minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, giving a statement that the caretaker government had the capacity to hold free, fair, and transparent elections in Gilgit-Baltistan.[13] [14]
Opinion polling taken before the election had shown the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), the ruling party prior to the 2020 election, being the third-most-popular political party in Gilgit-Baltistan, falling from its earlier position of making the province's government and having the largest vote-bank. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which ruled nationally, led in the polls and the Pakistan Peoples Party had been shown as the second-most-popular political party.
745,362 voters in Gilgit-Baltistan had the ability to exercise their right to vote in the elections and will be able to vote across nearly 1,234 polling places across the province. This showed an increase of 126,998 new voters since 2015, when only 618,364 people were registered to vote. 405,365 of the people registered to vote are male and 339,997 are female (which shows a gender gap of 9%).[15] [16]
The elections were postponed in the constituency GBA-3 (Gilgit-III), due to the PTI candidate in that constituency, who was the provincial party leader, dying of COVID-19 in early October. The election there were held on November 22, seven days after the election throughout the rest of Gilgit-Baltistan.[17]
Preliminary and unofficial results showed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf being all set to form the next government in Gilgit-Baltistan. They had won eleven general seats, Independent politicians had won seven seats, the Pakistan Peoples Party had won three seats, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) had won two seats, and the Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen had won one seat.
In late November 2020, the final results revealed that the PTI won a two-thirds majority of seats (22 of 33). The PPP and PML-N won five and three seats, respectively. [18] [19]
Full results by districts were published on November 24. The latter two parties made claims of election fraud and supporters staged demonstrations to protest against the alleged rigging. [20]
Following the elections in 2015, Pakistan Muslim League (N), emerged as the largest party winning 15 of the 24 general seats in the Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly, and securing a supermajority in the assembly after the three technocrat (two who went to PML(N)) and six women representatives (four who went to PML(N)) were added with a final total of 21 out of 33 seats. Hafiz Hafeezur Rehman was elected as the Chief Minister of Gilgit-Baltistan.[21] [22]
The table below lists the ten political parties that fielded at least three candidates (out of a possible 24 constituencies) or won at least one assembly seat in the 2020 Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly election, and gives a detailed overview of their characteristics. Parties are initially ordered by their voteshare in the 2015 Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly Election.
| Name | National Leader | Claimed Ideology(ies) | data-sort-type=number | Voteshare in 2015 | data-sort-type=number | General Assembly Seats won in the 2015 election | data-sort-type=number | Total seats in the 2nd Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly | data-sort-type=number | Total seats in the 3rd Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly | Symbol | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PML(N) | Shehbaz Sharif | Conservatism Economic Liberalism Federalism | 34.17% | Tiger | |||||||||
| PPP | Bilawal Bhutto Zardari | Social Democracy Secularism Social Liberalism | 18.26% | Arrow | |||||||||
| PTI | Imran Khan | Populism Islamic Democracy Welfarism | 11.11% | Bat | |||||||||
| MWM | Allama Raja Nasir Abbas | Pan-Islamism Welfarism Populism | 10.50% | Tent | |||||||||
| ITP | Syed Sajid Ali Naqvi | Pan-Islamism | 4.88% | Two Swords | |||||||||
| JUI(F) | Fazl-ur-Rahman | Islamism Clericalism Conservatism | 2.94% | Book | |||||||||
| BNF | Nawaz Khan Naji | Gilgit-Baltistan Autonomy | 1.39% | Revolver | |||||||||
| APML | Pervez Musharraf | Pakistani Nationalism Islamic Democracy Atlanticism | 1.18% | Eagle | |||||||||
| MQM(P) | Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui | Liberalism Muhajir Nationalism Secularism | 0.16% | Kite | |||||||||
| PSP | Syed Mustafa Kamal | Pakistani Nationalism | Did Not Contest 2015 Elections | Dolphin | |||||||||
| PML(Q) | Shujaat Hussain | Conservatism Pakistani Nationalism | Did Not Contest 2015 Elections | Tractor | |||||||||
In the run up to the 2020 Gilgit-Baltistan elections, various organisations have carried out opinion polling to gauge voting intention throughout Gilgit-Baltistan. The results of such polls are displayed in this section. The date range for these opinion polls are from the previous general election, held on 8 June 2015, to the present day.
The table below shows the results of polls taken which asked the people of Gilgit-Baltistan which political party they would vote for in the 2020 election.
| Polling firm | Last date of polling | Link | PML(N) | PPP | PTI | JUI(F) | Other | Lead | Margin of error | Sample size | Polling method | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pulse Consultant | HTML | 14% | 26% | 35% | 4% | 12% | 9% | +9% | 1,423 | Field Interviews | |||
| Gallup Pakistan | 14% | 24% | 27% | 4% | 12% | 19% | +3% | ±2-3% | ~1,000 | Unknown | |||
| 2015 Election | ECGB | 34.17% | 18.40% | 11.11% | 4.45% | 31.87% | +15.77% | N/A | 379,032 | Final Election Results | |||
The two tables below show the results of the 2020 Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly Election by Political Party. The first table shows the results for the elections provincewide, through all 24 constituencies, and shows each political party's standing. The second table shows more detailed results for each of the 24 general constituencies.
On November 24, 2020, full results were published on the official Pakistani elections sites. PTI received 10 additional seats, earning it a historic two-thirds majority in the Assembly.[29] Independent candidates won 7 seats; Six of the independent candidates joined PTI after the election and the party already had a seat adjustment arrangement with the MWM. PPP got one seat reserved for women and one seat reserved for technocrats, whereas PMLN only got one reserved seat for women. The PPP party refused to accept the results and claimed election fraud.[30] [31]
| Constituency | Winner | Runner-up | data-sort-type=number rowspan="2" | Margin | data-sort-type=number rowspan="2" | Registered Voters | data-sort-type=number rowspan="2" | Votes Cast | data-sort-type=number rowspan="2" | Voter Turnout | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| District | Name | Candidate | Party | data-sort-type=number | Votes | data-sort-type=number | Candidate | Party | data-sort-type=number | Votes | data-sort-type=number | ||||||
| Gilgit | GBA-1 | Amjad Hussain Azar | PPP | 11,178 | Sultan Rais | IND | 8,356 | 2,822 | 35,992 | ||||||||
| GBA-2 | Fatehullah Khan | PTI | 6,698 | 27.16% | Jamil Ahmed | PPP | 6,694 | 27.14% | 4 | 41,108 | 24,661 | 60.00% | |||||
| GBA-3 | Syed Sohail Abbas Shah | PTI | 6,873 | Muhammad Iqbal | IND | 4,678 | 2,195 | 41,360 | 26,461 | 63.98% | |||||||
| Nagar | GBA-4 | Amjad Hussain Azar | PPP | 4,716 | Muhammad Ayub | ITP | 4,291 | 425 | 23,171 | 14,837 | 64.03% | ||||||
| GBA-5 | Javed Ali Manwa | IND | 2,570 | Rizwan Ali | MWM | 1,850 | 720 | 14,001 | |||||||||
| Hunza | GBA-6 | Abaid Ullah Baig | PTI | 5,710 | Noor Muhammad | IND | 4,683 | 2,014 | 43,603 | 23,060 | 52.89% | ||||||
| Skardu | GBA-7 | Raja Muhammad Zakaria Khan Maqpoon | PTI | 5,565 | Syed Mehdi Shah | PPP | 4,113 | 1,452 | 17,127 | ||||||||
| GBA-8 | Muhammad Kazim Maisam | MWM | 7,842 | 35.35% | PPP | 6,904 | 31.12% | 938 | 39,567 | 22,182 | 56.06% | ||||||
| GBA-9 | Wazir Muhammad Saleem | IND | 6,286 | Fida Muhammad Nashad | PTI | 5,187 | 1,099 | 25,562 | |||||||||
| GBA-10 | Raja Nasir Ali Khan Maqpoon | IND | 4,811 | 27.18% | Wazir Hassan | PTI | 3,439 | 19.43% | 1,372 | 26,839 | 17,702 | 65.96% | |||||
| Kharmang | GBA-11 | Syed Amjad Ali Zaidi | PTI | 5,733 | Syed Muhsin Rizvi | IND | 2,016 | 3,717 | 26,869 | ||||||||
| Shigar | GBA-12 | Raja Azam Khan Amacha | PTI | 10,674 | Imran Nadeem | PPP | 8,886 | 1,788 | 36,183 | 24,804 | 68.55% | ||||||
| Astore | GBA-13 | Muhammad Khalid Khurshid Khan | PTI | 4,836 | Abdul Hamid Khan | PPP | 3,117 | 1,719 | 33,378 | 16,298 | 48.83% | ||||||
| GBA-14 | Shamsul Haq | PTI | 5,354 | Muzaffar Ali | PPP | 3,473 | 1,881 | 29,023 | 15,513 | 53.45% | |||||||
| Diamer | GBA-15 | Shah Baig | IND | 2,713 | Muhammad Dilpazir | IND | 2,309 | 404 | 35,185 | 22,237 | 63.20% | ||||||
| GBA-16 | Muhammad Anwar | PML(N) | 4,813 | Attaullah | IND | 2,576 | 2,237 | 35,405 | 21,458 | 60.61% | |||||||
| Tangir | GBA-17 | Rehmat Khaliq | JUI(F) | 5,389 | Haider Khan | PTI | 5,126 | 263 | 29,955 | 12,870 | 42.96% | ||||||
| Darel | GBA-18 | Gulbar Khan | PTI | 6,793 | Malik Kifayat Ur Rehman | IND | 5,986 | 807 | 18,907 | 9,669 | 51.14% | ||||||
| Ghizer | GBA-19 | Nawaz Khan Naji | BNF(N) | 6,208 | Pir Jalal Ali Shah | PPP | 4,967 | 1,241 | 37,808 | ||||||||
| GBA-21 | Ghulam Muhammad | PML(N) | 4,334 | PPP | 3,430 | 904 | 34,973 | 20,053 | 57.34% | ||||||||
| Gupis-Yasin | GBA-20 | Nazir Ahmed | PTI | 5,592 | Khan Akbar Khan | PML(Q) | 3,815 | 1,777 | 42,533 | ||||||||
| Ghanche | GBA-22 | Mushtaq Hussain | IND | 6,051 | PTI | 4,945 | 1,106 | 29,104 | 17,169 | 58.99% | |||||||
| GBA-23 | Abdul Hameed | IND | 3,666 | Amina Ansari | PTI | 3,296 | 370 | 27,522 | 15,393 | 55.93% | |||||||
| GBA-24 | Engr Mohammad Ismail | PPP | 6,239 | Syed Shamsuddin | PTI | 5,361 | 845 | 20,187 | 12,251 | 60.69% | |||||||