Pakistan, Aug. 4 -- On Monday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif congratulated the PML-N leadership in the light of unofficial results from the second phase of elections in Azad Jammu and Kashmir wherein the party had won 14 of 18 seats, adding to its nine victories in Mirpur a week earlier. The remaining phase, covering Poonch constituencies, is scheduled for August 10.

Amid the fog of an extraordinarily difficult campaign, one political fact is becoming harder to evade: Azad Kashmir's future cannot be negotiated exclusively at the barricade.

The past few months have seen the Joint Awami Action Committee build its appeal upon grievances that are neither invented nor trivial. Electricity tariffs, wheat prices, uneven development, elite priv...