by Qaiser Felix

NGOs and opposition parties complain that the second phase in the election process was marred by government fraud, chaos and rigging. Voters still required to vote along confessional lines.

Faisalabad (AsiaNews) – Human and civil rights groups as well as opposition parties have slammed the government for turning local elections into a meaningless exercise. The government, they contend, favoured "its own candidates" and manipulated voters so as "to ensure that these institutions remain under the influence of the ruling party and its allies".

"The elections were not only massively rigged, both before and on the day of the ballot, but also served a serious blow to the concept of multi-party and pluralist democracy," said Asma Jahangir, chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).

The Commission released a statement last Friday critical of the government's decision to hold local elections on a non-party basis—this has proven to be incompatible with democratic norms and only promoted and encouraged corruption.

Ms Jahangir said the Commission received a number of complaints concerning riding boundaries that favoured the ruling coalition, especially in Sindh province.

The HRCP chairperson also charged the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) with failing to discharge its duties. The ECP's failure shows once more that the country needed an independent commission to fulfill its tasks, she said.

"As things stand, no one can be sure of a free and fair general election in 2007. All parties, including the government, must realise the current elections are nothing but a meaningless exercise," the HRCP chief concluded.

Shahbaz Bhatti, chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), told AsiaNews that the a single electoral system—which was rejected in this election once again— "would be a source of social harmony and would bring people of different faiths closer together".

Local councils, whose members were elected by voters registered in separate confessional voter lists, were dissolved on June 30 by the ECP. APMA had called for a single voter list to replace the current confessional system, but its request fell again on deaf ears.

Mr Bhatti criticised the government for reserving six seats—four male and two female—to Muslims in each 13-member council "because a 97 per cent majority doesn't need any kind of reserved seats."

The Pattan Development Organisation (PDO), a NGO that monitored the elections, also came out against the government for the "chaos, disruption and total mismanagement [. . .] witnessed in the recently concluded two phases of local government elections during which over 50 people lost their lives."

According to the PDO, as many as 1,019 out of 4,094 people interviewed at 102 polling stations said they were pressured inside the polling stations to vote for certain candidates.

It warns that it is "very likely" that this will happen during the third phase of the elections scheduled for September 29.

Pakistan has a population of 148 million people, 97 per cent Muslim. Christians are about 2.5 per cent with more than one million Catholics.

• pakistan
• local
• elections
• manipulations
• rigging
• electoral
• fraud
• coalition
• government
• confessional
• voter
• lists
• islam
• christians
• minorities