Pakistan Poll Rigging

RIGGING IN ELECTIONS;--

Massive fraud! - An Eyewitness Account
By Erik de Bruyn

Erik de Bruyn, leader of the left wing of the Flemish Socialist Party in Belgium has been invited by the PPP to monitor the elections in Pakistan. In particular he is monitoring the elections in the industrial belt of Karachi (NA 257) where the PPP candidate Riaz Lund is challenging the ruling extreme right wing party, the MQM. Here what his personal report on day of election.

Yesterday started with hope, as you can see from my earlier report. But what I saw yesterday made me realise that this Election Day was just the beginning of a very long struggle of liberation of the people of Pakistan. Yesterday I visited some twenty 'sensitive' polling stations. All of them are in an area dominated by the MQM, the party in power in Karachi and the Sindh Province and the local pillar of the Musharraf regime.

When I say 'dominated' you have to take this quite literally. In theory all parties have the right to send scrutineers to the polling stations. In this area I saw only twenty percent of stations with PPP scrutineers. Other opposition parties were not even to be seen. How is this possible? The scrutineers present are incredibly courageous people. They suffer ill treatment, are sometimes abducted and often even killed by the parties in power. A collaborator of an independent NGO told me that yesterday official figures indicated that 15 scrutineers of the PPP were assassinated in the whole country. Most of the 27 people killed yesterday were scrutineers at polling stations, quite apart from the abductions, torture, etc. Last night two PPP women activists in Karachi were still missing. We tried to compensate for the absence of a sufficient number of PPP scrutineers by organising a kind of flying picket in this 'sensitive zone'.
The forms with the electoral results being changed or filled in at the central counting office of the NA-257 district, where the data should only be collected and counted.

The absence of PPP scrutineers was not the only thing I saw: some polling stations were decorated as headquarters of the MQM. Election forms which had already been filled in (pro-MQM of course) were strewn around the tables ready to get stamped by the officials, identification papers of people who are not on the electoral rolls (in other words people who do not exist), suitcases filled with election forms which were either not sealed or badly sealed. Some of the cases of fraud were solved by our presence and intervention. Some 900 MQM votes have been declared null and void as a result of these irregularities.

However, the worst was yet to come. In the evening I went to the central counting office of the NA 257 district. What I saw and photographed there defies everything imaginable. Stacks of bags full of election forms were broken open. Forms were being filled in or changed in the corridors of the court hall. Other original forms were thrown away. Thanks to our pressure and the presence of the local media, a local president of the polling station was arrested and taken away. But will it surprise you to learn that the socialist PPP candidate Riaz Lund, who in the evening was winning with 15,000 votes in 50 out of the 198 polling stations, has officially lost the election?

Congratulations to people of Pakistan. You have shown what a ballot box can do to Generals with lust of power ....Wish Pakistan best ..

Early results seem to indicate the elections in Pakistan have been largely free and fair and generally peaceful. Many well known top leaders of PML (Q) are reported to have lost with PPP and PML (N) doing a nearly clean sweep in parts of Sind and Punjab. Religious parties are also suffering major setbacks. Looks like my hopes of ISI political cell of at least temp deactivation were real. Musharraf and Kayani seem to be delivering on their promises. Let's hope the winners now show grace in their victory and try to reconcile and unify the nation to build durable democratic institutions that serve the average people in Pakistan.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Re: # 9 ["... Yahya became COAS in 1966, booted out Ayub ..."]

In those days the army was headed by a C-in-C and the chief of staff was the number two, almost like the vice-chief of Zia and Musharraf eras. Mr. Bhutto, on 20th December, 1971, in his capacity as the new chief-martial-law-administrator, changed that designation to COAS and assumed the title of commander-in-chief for the president (himself). In practical terms though, I doubt if it made any difference whatsoever.

Your history and Math may suggest otherwise, but I don't think Kiyani, or any other general at present, and at least for the next ten years (no more, though) will dare to stage another take-over. The norm now will be the troika once again. This troika arrangement can only be upstaged if a strong parliament gets elected with a sweeping 2/3 majority for the winning party. THAT is not happening this time. Maybe next time, i.e., whenever, NEXT is: six months, two years, ten years or never.

...SR

SR,

(Kiyani has not had enough time yet to establish himself.)

Ayub ruled Pak for 11 years (1958-69), Zia also 11 years (1977-88).

Yahya became COAS in 1966, booted out Ayub as ruler of Pak in 1969 (about 3 years time.) Mushy became COAS in early 1998 and booted out NS as ruler of Pak in end 1999 (about 2 years time).

Kiyani has become COAS in end 2007.

If history and Maths are any guide, Mushy shud be serving the people of Pak till 2010 and then be forced aside by Kiyani.

Regards

a word on the ISI in politics.

the main problem is that once one factual error is committed everyone repeats it.fazl i muqeem was the first to fallaciously state that there were no all muslim units in british indian army.stephen cohen repeated it. i was the first to correct cohen in my book pakistan army till 1965 and the US so called jewish intellectual mafia did not like it.

in this case i think Cowasjee because he has a personality clash with ZAB made this false assertion about ISI political cell.

refers Maj Gen Shaukat Riza,Pakistan Army's official historian , at at least one place Riza in his book 1965 war part of the triology history admits that ISI was too busy in politics thus neglecting its real int work in 1965.i will quote exact reference later as i am on the move.

additionally i dont want to be a part of this discussion.

with respect and regards to all interactors.

agha

Re: # 1 ["... If these reports are correct, a possible conclusion one can draw is that the ISI political cell has been deactivated for the elections 2008. I hope that this is a valid conclusion, not just wishful thinking on my part ..."]

This is NOT a foregone conclusion. The ISI, technically, does NOT come under the army chief. The head of ISI (usually a serving Lieutenant General) reports directly to the president (or prime minister when that office is not a puppet, as it is now) and is not taking any orders from the chief. It is the president who appoints the head of ISI, but only out of a pannel of three names given to him by the army chief. The president can reject all three and ask for a new set of three names, but this is how its supposed to be done. All appointees within the ISI are at the pleasure of the director-general.

In practical terms, however, the director-general of the ISI knows that the chief can recall him back to the regular army (that is within the chief's prerogative -- unless the DG-ISI is a civilian or a retired officer as was the case once during the Bhutto era). Similarly the five major-generals who each head the five directorates of the ISI (counter-espionage & anti-terrorism, foreign intelligence, etc., etc.) can also be re-called to the regular army service by the chief. This does give the army chief an indirect influence over the ISI, but there is no direct chain of command. The serving army, navy, airforece officers who are assigned to the ISI are sort of on a deputation away from their mother service and thus not directly working under their respective chains of command.

For this reason, I am not sure how much influence Kiyani can have over the ISI's meddling into the election affairs. Kiyani has not had enough time yet to establish himself.

...SR

i have read a very interesting article on www.orbat.com------------

0230 February 18, 2008

From Prof. Feisal Khan On Islam and the Pakistan Army A couple of points of clarification about what you wrote on Gen. Zia and the Pakistan Army. Gen. Zia was appointed COAS in 1976 and staged a coup in 1977. Zia did not institute Islamism in either Pakistan or the Army, he merely accelerated the process and carried it forward to its logical conclusion.

The process actually began with the introduction of the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly by PM Liaquat Ali Khan in 1949. The Resolution enshrined Islam as the State Religion and mandated that Muslims would live their lives in accordance with the Quran and Sunnah. The Resolution was a part of all three (1956, 1962 and 1973) Constitutions' Preambles and formally added to the body of the 1973 Constitution by Gen. Zia in 1985.

It was Z A Bhutto who declared certain Muslim sects to be nonmuslim, banned alcohol and changed the weekly holiday to Friday. Before Zia the Army had always used Islam as a motivational and unifying force; Zia merely institutionalized and formalized what had been done informally before. While it is certainly true that before Zia senior officers were less overtly religious and more secular and that the Army had an overall 'secular' ethos, the class composition of the officer corps was already changing by the beginning of the 1970s, long before Zia was in a position to influence anything in the Army.

The sons of JCOs, NCOs and ORs, as well as many rankers (much more so than in the Indian Army) were already gaining commissions in large numbers in the 1960s and after 1971, virtually the ONLY ones who wanted to join the Army were them.

Zia, again, did not begin the changeover to an Islamic Army but he certainly accelerated the process.

Re: # 1 kiani is only an individual , the pakistani generals have developed certain class and corporate interests over a period of time since 1977.they are a mafia.what kiani has done is just cosmetic . the main guys running the army's main culprit intelligence agencies MI and ISI are musharrafs men and it are these agencies that will manipulate the elections and the successful candidates.its a very sticky dirty affair.the army will rig the elections because it thinks its know all and the real guardian of pakistans territorial and ideological frontiers.

Riaz sahib,

(It was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who issued the executive order creating a political cell within the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) with the purpose of influencing political processes in Pakistan. This fateful decision eventually brought ZA Bhutto's own downfall when he used this cell to unnecessarily rig the 1977 elections and was overthrown and executed by General Zia-ul-Haq.)

Please mark this out for Masadi sahib's kind attention.

Regards

I am from India. The rigging has largely reduced in India due to very strong Election Commission. Now, no political party complains about rigging. Another tool for reduction in rigging is EVM (Electronic Voting Machine). It is very simple but very useful tool. Pakistan can follow Indian method.

Riaz,

As they say

"There goes the neighborhood"

Welcome aboard!

Too bad that I don't have an interest in the subject

matter anymore.


Ras

Since writing this column about a week ago, I have seen reports in Wall Street Journal indicating that Pakistan's Army Chief Gen. Kayani has initiated a number of changes that establish a divide between the uniformed army and Mr. Musharraf, according to senior Pakistani officers. Last month, Gen. Kayani, 55 years old, issued an order barring officers from any unauthorized meetings with Pakistani politicians, including the president. The army commander also said the military wouldn't play any role in staging next week's parliamentary elections, outside of providing security, according to the Wall Street Journal. If these reports are correct, a possible conclusion one can draw is that the ISI political cell has been deactivated for the elections 2008. I hope that this is a valid conclusion, not just wishful thinking on my part.