PoK govt on the brink as PPP moves to oust PM Anwar-ul-Haq, numbers say...

New Delhi: The fall of the Anwar-ul-Haq government in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) now appears imminent, with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) preparing to bring a no-confidence motion against the prime minister if he does not resign immediately.

According to party sources, PPP leadership has decided that Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwar-ul-Haq must step aside, and if he refuses, the party will force a floor test in the PoK Assembly.

President Asif Ali Zardari has approved the proposal to move a no-confidence motion against the PoK prime minister, after a late-night huddle at the Presidency with senior PPP functionaries and regional leaders. 

PPP insiders say Zardari has cleared the political line: either a managed transition, or a formal no-trust move inside the House.

Anwar-ul-Haq, who belongs to the Istehkam-e-Pakistan Party (IPP), was heading a coalition that depended on both the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the PPP.

That coalition is now collapsing.

The PML-N has already withdrawn support to the government. With the PML-N out and the PPP openly shifting to a takeover posture, Anwar-ul-Haq’s administration has been pushed into a minority.

Shah Ghulam Qadir, a senior Muslim League figure in PoK, said his party no longer backs what he called an “unnatural government” arrangement. His comment is being read in Muzaffarabad as a public signal that the old understanding in the assembly is over.

PPP leaders in the region are now speaking like an incoming government, not an ally. Sardar Javed Ayoub said on Friday night that the party is “preparing to form government in PoK,” and claimed the PPP has already held two rounds of internal meetings in recent days to finalise its numbers and strategy. 

According to him, the party has “adequate” support in the House to elect its own choice as the next prime minister.

Party sources say three names have been discussed for the top job in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir: Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, Sardar Yaqoob and Chaudhry Latif Akhtar. All three have been sounded as possible consensus faces to lead the new government.

Sardar Tanveer Ilyas told local media that a no-confidence motion “can be tabled at any time,” and said there is “no issue regarding assembly numbers.” PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira also confirmed that the party high command has held detailed conversations on “the current political situation in PoK and possible ways forward.”

In other words, the PPP is not just threatening Anwar-ul-Haq. It is positioning itself to replace him.

Why this is happening now

The timing is not accidental. The Anwar-ul-Haq government has been under intense and growing pressure for months over price shocks, joblessness, and the withdrawal or scaling back of subsidies on essentials like electricity and flour.

Those grievances erupted into street anger. In May 2024 and again in late September and early October 2025, mass protests led by the Joint Awami Action Committee (also known locally as the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee / JKJAAC) brought large parts of Pakistan-administered Kashmir to a halt. Demonstrators demanded cheaper power, cheaper wheat flour, and an end to what they called “elite privileges”, official perks and allowances for ministers and senior officers. 

The clashes turned deadly. In the May 2024 phase of the agitation, at least three protesters and one police officer were killed, and dozens were injured in Muzaffarabad and other towns after security forces tried to break up marches and long strikes. 

The standoff only cooled after Pakistan’s federal government in Islamabad stepped in and announced a special subsidy package worth roughly 23-24 billion rupees (over USD 80 million at the time) to bring down the cost of flour and electricity in the region. 

That intervention by the federal government was widely read as a vote of no confidence in the region’s ability to control its own streets. Protest leaders said they were not just angry about bills, but about a system they saw as extractive: high tariffs, high inflation, and political elites insulated from the pain. 

The anger did not disappear.

In 2025, the same movement again organised shutdowns, marches and sit-ins across Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, accusing the government of failing to fully deliver the relief it had promised and of continuing to protect “ruling class privileges.” 

The unrest paralysed life in multiple districts, forced highway blockades, and triggered fresh confrontations in which more people were killed and more than a hundred were injured, including police personnel. The administration was once again forced to ask Islamabad for help to defuse the situation. 

For Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq, this was politically devastating. He was already seen as a compromise choice backed by bigger national parties. Now he is being painted, by both protesters in the street and rivals inside the assembly, as a leader who could not protect ordinary people from crushing costs, could not hold public order without bloodshed, and in the end had to rely on federal bailouts to survive. 

PPP leaders are using that mood.

Their argument to lawmakers in PoK is simple: the Anwar-ul-Haq government has lost public legitimacy, it has lost assembly arithmetic, and it is turning into a liability for Islamabad because each new protest is now spilling into national headlines and forcing ad hoc cash injections from the centre. 

At this point, Chaudhry Anwar-ul-Haq is cornered. The PML-N has walked away. The PPP has publicly moved into “post-Anwar” mode. President Zardari has signed off on a no-trust route.

Inside the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir assembly, PPP figures insist they already have the numbers to elect their own prime minister. The party is circulating names and telling supporters, on and off the record, that “it’s only a matter of timing.”

If Anwar-ul-Haq steps down quietly, the transition could be packaged as orderly. If he refuses, the PPP says it will force a vote and make the fall official.