GILGIT: Pakistan Peoples Party candidate Advocate Amjad Hussain has won the GBA-1 Gilgit-I constituency in the Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly elections 2026, securing 10,594 votes in a contest that drew 23 candidates.
PML-N’s Shafiq ud Din finished second with 6,316 votes, while Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) candidate Muhammad Ilyas Siddiqui came third with 3,415 votes.
A Key Victory with Chief Ministerial Implications
The GBA-1 result carries particular political weight. Amjad Hussain Advocate serves as president of PPP Gilgit-Baltistan and is widely regarded as one of the three frontrunners for the next Chief Minister’s post. Following his victory, he posted a video on his Facebook page in which he referred to himself as the future Chief Minister.
A Veteran of GB Politics
Amjad Hussain is no stranger to GBA-1. In the 2020 Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly elections, he contested and won both GBA-1 Gilgit-I and GBA-4 Nagar-I on a PPP ticket, later vacating GBA-4 to take oath from GBA-1. He subsequently ran for Chief Minister in November 2020 but lost to PTI’s Khalid Khurshid, who received 22 votes against his nine. He was simultaneously elected Leader of the Opposition.
His Role in the 2023 Political Crisis
Amjad Hussain played a pivotal role in the political upheaval that unfolded in 2023. He represented PPP technocrat Ghulam Shehzad Agha as legal counsel when Agha challenged Chief Minister Khalid Khurshid’s academic credentials in court. The court ruled Khurshid’s degree fake and disqualified him from office.
The ruling set off a chain of events: Khurshid’s cabinet was dissolved, a PTI forward bloc led by Haji Gulbar Khan broke away and aligned with PPP and PML-N, and a new government was formed with Gulbar Khan as Chief Minister. Amid these developments, Amjad Hussain submitted his resignation from both his assembly seat and party position — widely interpreted as a reaction to being passed over for the chief ministerial role — though his resignation was ultimately not accepted.
With his 2026 victory now secured, Amjad Hussain Advocate re-enters the GB Assembly as one of its most consequential figures, with the question of the chief ministership once again at the centre of the political stage.