Vote-Rigging Alleged In Pakistan Elections

Vote-Rigging Alleged in Pakistan Elections

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlates...223007,00.html

By MUNIR AHMAD
Saturday August 20, 2005 9:46 PM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Candidates supported by Pakistan's ruling party apparently swept violence-marred municipal elections amid allegations of vote rigging, though the U.S.-allied government insists the polls were free and fair.

At least 20 people were killed and more than 200 others wounded nationwide during the first phase of elections Thursday, police and media reports said. The elections were held in 53 districts.

The second and final phase of the elections will be held Aug. 25.

In Pakistan, elections for choosing mayors and councilors are held every four years. Municipal officials play a key role in the country's politics and supervise development work in their areas.

Before this year's elections, police launched an anti-militant crackdown in which hundreds of people were detained on suspicion of ties to al-Qaida-linked domestic extremist groups.

Days before the polls, a court barred all candidates who graduated from Islamic seminaries but had not studied English, Pakistan affairs and the country's dominant language, Urdu.

Analysts say this decision helped prevent extremists from becoming mayors and councilors.

On Friday, Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, the top elected official in the eastern province of Punjab, claimed that the candidates supported by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q Party had won 70 percent to 80 percent of the seats there.

In northwestern Pakistan, Akram Durrani, the head of a provincial government, also claimed that candidates supported by his hard-line religious coalition called Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or United Action Forum, had done well.

Arbab Ghulam Rashim, the top elected official in the southern province of Sindh, and Jam Mohammed Yousaf, the top elected official in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, claimed the candidates they backed had won.

However, Naimatullah Khan, an opposition leader and former mayor of Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi, which is in Sindh, accused Rashim of rigging the elections. Many other opposition groups have made similar accusations against the government.

Amir Ahmad Khan, a political analyst in Karachi, said the elections were largely unfair because the government had not taken adequate steps to make sure independent observers were at the polling stations.

``Opposition groups had started raising concerns about transparency of the elections weeks ago, and on election day, I saw many opposition candidates crying and claiming that polls are being rigged,'' he aid.

However, the governor of Sindh province, Isharat-ul Ibad, dismissed the allegations as ``baseless.'' Kanwar Mohammed Dilshad, a senior election commission official, said those who believe the polls were unfair should submit evidence to the commission, which would take action on any such complaints.