March 5, 2007

For the Bye-elections held in Sindh on February 10, the Pakistan Peoples Party had fielded its candidates in good faith in both Karachi and Kotri.

The Chief Election Commissioner's (CEC) office had assured full support in terms of taking action on complaints filed by the PPP in both constituencies.

The candidate for Karachi, NA-250, had repeatedly briefed the CEC's office, as had the PPP's officials, on instances of pre-poll rigging. The use of State machinery in favour of the regime's candidate in Kotri, was matched by the use of Town Council and Municipal Board resources and vehicles in Karachi, to pull down PPP flags. The District Coordinating Officer (DCO) Jamshoro, Khawar Jamil was transferred a few days before the elections. His replacement, Ali Akbar Leghari, could not be expected to be neutral. He has been an active supporter of the ruling Party, PML-Q and played a highly partisan role in supporting the ruling Party during the last Local Bodies elections. PPP candidate Dr Sikanadar Ali Shoro had repeatedly notified the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) office of this crucial development but no action was taken.

For the polling day, the PPP had requested the CEC to make sure that all polling staff is neutral and does not belong to the official machinery. The PPP had also requested the CEC to take steps to keep out armed guards and weapons of all sorts from the polling stations. In view of its past experience with the MQM (coaition partner Sindh regime), the PPP had called for the deployment of para-military forces to maintain law and order to avert any threat to the life and security of those participating in the voting process, in Karachi. A list of 51 sensitive polling stations was also forwarded by the PPP to the CEC.

The events on polling day confirmed every fear that the PPP had, regarding the rigging as well as violence on the polling stations. More than 60 complaints were sent to the CEC from PPP Office / Bilawal House, Karachi in a matter of a few hours after the polling began. These complaints pointed out violent attacks, multiple voting, illegal stamping of ballot papers, use of force to disrupt the polling process, harassment of the PPP polling agents and the voters at the polling stations in Karachi,

On polling day itself, the Sindh ECP's office and CEC's office Islamabad were available on their cell phones and office lines to me, as I was monitoring election complaints for the PPP in Sindh, reassuring that action would indeed be taken, that order would be restored where bullets were being fired, that ballot stuffing would be immediately checked, that the PPP's polling agents would be allowed to go back into the polling stations as per their right.

In all cases, from both Kotri and Karachi, the PPP sent in its faxes to back up its phone calls, with details of each complaint, recorded duly by Union Council and polling station numbers.

At 11:00 a.m, the fax machine of the CEC went off, sending out the signal that it was unable to receive communications from its appellants under siege. Almost simultaneously, the phone lines to all ECP officials in both Sindh and Islamabad were switched off.

The polling day witnessed a historical violation of election rules. The Presiding Officers at a number of polling stations in NA-250 played a highly partisan role, allowing votes to be cast on the production of duplicate and photocopied ID cards. The MQM men were found openly stamping the ballot papers as they harassed and threatened the PPP polling agents while forcibly evicting various polling stations. Similar instances of rigging were found in PS-71 elections where against all the rules, the Sindh Chief Minister personally supervised the elections. At least seven provincial ministers and advisors were deployed in the constituency, where they stamped the ballot papers and stuffed ballot boxes with impunity. In the PPP complaint to the CEC, the Party candidate had pointed out specific names, and instances of rigging. These included the actions taken by  Provincial Minister Mr Altaf Unar, his Advisor Sayed Papoo Shah and District Nazim Arbab Anwar, who personally supervised the bogus vote casting exercise at over 12 polling stations (names provided in the complaint).

It is important to point out that the PPP was sent a very strong message, one day before the polling, when six of its Party workers were brutally murdered in Attock, Punjab.

On February 10, 2007, the Provincial Minister Altaf Unar, Malik Changes Khan and Suhrab Sarki themselves brought armed guards at PS-62 Budhapur and terrorized the voters and polling agents. They beat up the PPP polling agents and opened fire, clearly targeting Dr Azra Fazal Pecheho, Member National Assembly (MNA). Fortunately, Dr Azra survived because her vehicle windscreen was bullet-proof, but the bullet-marks on both the front and back of the car show that this was no random firing, and that the sister in law of the former Prime Minister, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, was not meant to survive that attack. Later Dr Azra approached the concerned SHO, Police Station Budhaphur, but he refused to lodge an FIR.

On polling day, multiple ballots were stamped in the presence of fake / substituted Presiding Officers who in 55 polling stations in Karachi, turned out to be MQM Party activists. Whenever they were asked for identity papers, the exchange turned violent and resulted in the PPPP polling agents being either injured or expelled from the polling station premises. By 1:00 p.m. the armed guards of the MQM had taken over almost all polling booths in Karachi, making it impossible for PPPP polling agents to witness, let alone verify the ballot count at close of polling. The MQM would not have gone ahead with its terror spree without the CEC turning a blind eye. This explains how the Party that had barely managed 19,000 votes in NA-250, in 2002 elections pushed its votes up to 47,000 on Feb 10, 2007?

In desperation to rescue its polling agents from gunfire, in more than 36 polling stations, the PPPP Election Cell from Bilawal House Karachi called all relevant police officials, including the DG Operations and Inspector General Police, Sindh. When available in the late afternoon, they said they had no instructions from the CEC. The IG Police, in fact, felt empowered enough to say to me, when I was finally was able to reach him on the telephone, that a Bye-poll was not worthy of his level of intervention. 

At 4: 30 p.m, the CEC's office suddenly woke up and sent about a dozen written responses to ten of the first faxes sent early in the morning. By the evening, the PPP had sent well over a hundred specific appeals for both the bye-polls. By the evening, when the CEC's Secretary, Mr Dilshad, finally found it prudent to answer his official telephone, there was blood all over the streets. The PPP had to divert all its resources and senior officials to picking up their injured members to hospitals, and to locating their kidnapped polling agents from police lock-ups in Saddar Town Karachi. By then, a provincial minister in Kotri had already made his henchmen open fire on the vehicle of MNA Dr Azra, with clear intent to kill the sister-in-law of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, and Chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. By 4.30 p.m, the full ferocity of the regime's violence was unleashed, without scruple, on almost all the women's polling stations, where parliamentarians such as Naheed Khan faced a volley of bullets at more than three polling stations, and many others like Shahida Rehmani, a PPPP ticket-holder, paid for their loyalty to democratic politics with their limbs.

 In all events, the CEC's office had reduced its role to that of a paper tiger. It made all the right noises, but its inaction spoke volumes of its weakness in the face of a military State which brooks no opposition to its despotic rule. By the evening of February 10, 2007, the Code of Ethics that the CEC has written for all players, was torn to shreds in full public view. Not only was the credibility of the Election Commission compromised, its autonomy was out for lunch.

It is pertinent to note that the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), in its Report on the bye-elections, confirmed the instances of rigging, multiple voting, illegal stamping of ballot papers, violence, and the presence of local government officials including elected leaders inside some booths in Karachi.
 
The events that marked the February 10 bye-elections are indicative of what is to come in the forthcoming General Elections. Efforts are already underway to crush the PPP vote bank, as evident in the new voters list being drawn. For instance, the 2002 voters list of 23 districts of the Province of Sindh contained 16,423,653 registered voters. Surprisingly, in the new list, the number plummeted to 11,819,805. Does this mean that 4,603,848 voters have simply vanished from the Province of Sindh? Given the increasing trend in population, and the fact that millions of 14-year-old youth would have turned 18 during the past four years, the decrease in the number of registered voters make no sense.

Another specific example is District Badin. The new voters list shows a sharp decline in registered voters which is again contrary to the demographic reality.

Similarly, according to Press reports, on a national level, 55 million voters have applied for registration in the fresh Electoral Rolls. The Election Commission (Secretary ECP Mr Dilshad quoted on March I, 2007) hints at 65 million voters but confirms no figures. The 2002 Electoral Rolls boasted of 71.86 million voters. Given the 2.7% population growth rate, this number should have grown to around 82 Million in 2007. However, the new voters list marks a lapse of 27 Million or 33%. This is too huge a figure to explain away. It is also difficult to buy into the Election Commission's claims that this gap was due to duplications and bogus votes. NADRA cited the presence of 3.4 million duplicate voters in the 2002 electoral rolls. This number should have now gone up to 3.88 million at the rate of 2.7% per annum and not to 27 million as the new voting list states. 

Given the fact that the Data Centres conducting the data entry of the new voters' data are not open to the public or to the NGOs, and the absence of photographs on the fresh Electoral Rolls, the PPP finds it impossible to trust the authenticity of the new voters list. Pictures of voters on the rolls would have provided an additional and in some cases the only ready means of identification of voters.

These are all matters that have been brought to the attention of the Chief Election Commissioner's office in Islamabad more than on one occasion. So far the PPP and its voters have been provided no relief.
 
For the Pakistan Peoples Party, no election will be acceptable as legitimate unless it is held by an independent and autonomous Election Commission, held by a neutral caretaker government of national consensus in which all political players are allowed to freely participate and given a level playing field.


Sherry Rehman
Central Information Secretary
Pakistan Peoples Party