Election Commission ignoring complaints, says opposition
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ATTOCK: The Pakistani Election Commission's office in the town of Attock is in a run-down building on the outskirts of town.Several dusty computers sit on tables, none of them switched on, and the office has no Internet connection, said the only person there yesterday morning, a caretaker with a grey beard. "No one's here," said the caretaker, Ghulam Rafiq, when a Reuters reporter stopped by. Transparent plastic ballot boxes were stacked up with piles of election manuals in boxes. "He comes very rarely," Rafiq said when asked about the district's main election officer. "He's a man of his own will." Pakistani opposition parties are pinning their hopes for free and fair parliamentary elections on January 8 on Election Commission offices like the one in Attock. But in this town on the Indus river in Punjab province, opposition politicians said the commission was ignoring complaints of unfair electioneering by candidates who support President Pervez Musharraf. "The Election Commission seems to be totally paralysed," said Malik Amin Aslam, a former environment minister running as an independent candidate. "We are providing them information with proof," he said of his complaints about unfair electioneering by his opponents. "There's no doubt there's a plan to support certain politicians and parties." Three members of a powerful political family that supports Musharraf are contesting in Attock's three constituencies. The father of one of the candidates is the district government chief who is meant to be impartial but yesterday was seen asking voters to support the three. His photograph appears on his daughter's election posters. The election for provincial parliaments and a National Assembly from which a prime minister and a government will be drawn is seen as a three-way race between the opposition parties of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and the party that ruled under Musharraf and backs him. Bhutto and Sharif have both complained of rigging and have warned of protests if they are cheated out of victory. That raises the prospect of more instability in the nuclear-armed US ally grappling with militant violence. The opposition says a caretaker government overseeing the polls is dominated by Musharraf's supporters, down to the district level, and the Election Commission is pliant and weak. Musharraf, who lifted a six-week state of emergency on December 15 has called for free and fair elections but that has done little to reassure the opposition. "Voters are being openly threatened and they are changing their loyalties but the Election Commission is paying no attention. They are part of this rigging plan," said Sheikh Aftab Ahmed, a candidate for Sharif's party. But Attock's assistant election commissioner, Sardar Mazhar Hussain, tracked down at a town court, said his office had not got any complaints in writing so there was nothing he could do. "There's no question of taking action against anybody." Attock's chief Election Commission official, district returning officer Tariq Abbasi, said his office could do much more if it had the resources and workers. "We can't assign people to keep an eye on each candidate. We act on complaints from individuals or groups but so far we haven't got any complaints from voters," Abbasi said. A member of an election watchdog group said the district government was backing the pro-Musharraf candidates. "It's now an open secret that government machinery is involved ... police are harassing and intimidating voters to vote in favour of the king's party," said the worker for the Free and Fair Election Network. He declined to be identified.- Reuters |
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