As opposition files complaints, poll finds only 15 per cent believe Feb. 18 vote will be fair
SONYA FATAH
THE TORONTO STAR, January 21, 2008
KARACHI, Pakistan–In the large, white-tiled interior of his office, Choudhury Qamar uz Zaman sits back in his swivel chair, and nods patiently as three political campaigners run through lists of pre-poll rigging accusations.
“Sir, the district leader is using government vehicles and police assistance to run PML-Q’s (Pakistan Muslim League-Q) campaigns,” said one, accusing the country’s pro-government party of using state apparatus.
“We are not `Red Indians,’ sir,” said another. “What do you want to do? Put us in reservations and cast us aside?”
Zaman assured the three, all members of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the populist party whose chair Benazir Bhutto was assassinated last month, that he would look into the matter.
As voters prepare to go to polling stations on Feb. 18, a Gallup survey suggests only 15 per cent of Pakistanis believe the elections will be free and fair
Last week, the Citizens Group on Electoral Process said a 13-month review of the pre-electoral process revealed it was “highly unfair” and cited as examples the assault on the country’s judiciary, curbs on private media, the deep ties of officials in the caretaker government to those in the former regime, and the lack of neutrality of the election commission.
In addition, both of the country’s major political parties, the Pakistan Peoples Party and Nawaz Sharif `s Pakistan Muslim League-N, released reports citing the names and details of government officials assisting contestants, police brutality against political workers, and other forms of pre-poll rigging.
Rigged elections are not a new phenomenon in Pakistan. But this time the world is watching.
Of the country’s eight general elections since 1970, none has been anywhere close to free and fair. The most recent, a referendum in 2002 on Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s then Legal Framework Order, was widely recognized as a sham to give the president five more years in power.
At stake now is the future of the PML-Q, long known as the king’s party for its loyalty to Musharraf. Born in a climate of political oppression when two opposition leaders were in exile, the PML-Q faces its greatest challenge: getting elected as genuine political parties gather strength and momentum in the aftermath of Bhutto’s assassination and the return of Sharif from exile in Saudi Arabia.
“The impression among voters is that the caretaker government is … a proxy government of the PML-Q leadership,” said Syed Shamsuddin, project co-ordinator of Pakistan Coalition for Free and Fair Democratic Elections, a group of non-governmental organizations overseeing the elections.
“The government has lodged a ridiculous number of cases against hundreds of our workers,” said Sasui Palejo, a PPP contestant from Thatta in interior Sindh province. “They claim we’ve been responsible for all the looting and arson that took place after Mohtarma’s death,” she said referring to three days of looting, pillaging and attacks on government and other properties immediately following the assassination of Bhutto in December.
The authorities are calling “me a terrorist,” she said referring to officials within the caretaker government.
“The police have been given orders to shoot and kill if they need to, and they are completely abusing that authority.”
At the election commission’s Sindh headquarters Zaman coolly fields hundreds of allegations of rigging daily.
“There’s not much we can do anyway. I know there have been police transfers as the opposition alleges. But all I can do is forward the complaint to police authorities. What they do after that is not my responsibility.”
Even Zaman admits that there are institutional and other problems. The government’s electronic database collected by NADRA, the country’s data collection department, has refused to share its list of registered citizens with identity cards.
“As a result people are counted and over-counted in many places,” said Zaman. “This is definitely a problem.”
But Zaman thinks Pakistan’s system “is one of the best in the world.” He says his experiences as a UN elections monitor in East Timor, Namibia and Cambodia have given him confidence in Pakistan’s election system.
Skeptics, however, wonder if the elections will take place at all.
“I don’t think elections will be held because the political situation is so charged that they cannot rig the elections the way they want to without causing a catastrophe,” said Shamsuddin.
Government officials have also stated that the upcoming elections are dependent on the country’s law-and-order situation.
Popularity: 2% [?]
