Azad Kashmir election

During my visit, I did not fail to notice that the Azad Kashmir elections are due shortly. Not that there was overmuch public enthusiasm. Politics there as elsewhere is impotent. Strip away the large houses, shopping malls and the land cruisers, all private wealth remitted from overseas, and the developmental gains of politicians are very modest.

I tried to imagine the place as it would have been without contact with England. The road is in a state of disrepair. The basic public health system has barely moved on from how I remember it from the 1970s. People try to avoid state schools if they can afford to. True, the construction of an electricity grid station means electricity, when available, is powerful enough for most purposes. This is offset by the even greater frequency of load shedding. Supply cannot meet demand - it is the job of politics to fine tune supply and demand.

On a different note, I was surprised that in Dadyal at least the parties had not announced their candidates even at this relatively late hour. The reason, I suspect, is that there are so many hopefuls, egged on by enthusiastic supporters, that parties cannot depend on the continuing loyalty of those who fail to get a ticket. The longer the delay in announcing candidates, the more difficult it becomes for disappointed candidates to run as independents. There is no such thing as ideology; there as here, there is very little to choose from.