As Pakistani vote looms, complaints of election rigging mount

BY: SAEED SHAH
February 13, 2008

MULTAN, PAKISTAN – Zain Qureshi, election manager for one of the leaders of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, took a call recently from one of his local campaign organizers. A terrified-sounding Arshad Khan Kunderani said that he has been ordered by the police not to leave his home, or "they will arrest me."

Mr. Kunderani's transgression: He switched loyalties from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q to the Peoples Party, led by Benazir Bhutto until her assassination in December. Mr. Kunderani is influential in his constituency, on the outskirts of Multan in Punjab province, and the PML-Q doesn't want to see him out campaigning, Mr. Qureshi says.

"It is very damaging for us. If we can't even save one of our own people from arrest, what will voters think?" he said.

As Pakistan goes to the polls on Monday, there are increasing allegations of "pre-poll" rigging. They include local officials campaigning in conflict of interest, moving polling stations, and offering jobs and village improvements in exchange for votes. Analysts and opposition parties fear that if the result is skewed in favour of the PML-Q, which supports President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan could descend into bloodshed.

Under changes Mr. Musharraf introduced in 2001, the police and other local arms of the state are under the control of an elected official - the nazim. There are more than 100 district nazims, with lower-level nazims handling smaller areas under them. While Mr. Musharraf has trumpeted the system as a democratizing move, critics say it politicizes local government, creating a ready mechanism for state resources to be used for political parties - a clear breach of election rules. While it is not necessary that nazims are from the PML-Q, most are. In Punjab province, which holds almost half the seats for the national parliament, 33 of the 35 district nazims are from the PML-Q.

In another of Multan's constituencies, the Peoples Party's vice-chairman, Yousaf Raza Gilani, is in a close contest to unseat a PML-Q member of parliament and former minister whose brother is the town nazim.

"All the funds are at his disposal," Mr. Gilani said.

In Attock, in northern Punjab, the district nazim, Tahir Sadiq, has three close relatives running in three constituencies that fall under him - his daughter, brother-in-law and son-in law - amid widespread charges of abuse of power.

An investigation of electioneering in Attock by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, an independent organization, found that the local administration had given out large election "bribes" in the form of jobs. In the Attock police, 1,476 recruits were suddenly added, six weeks before election campaigning began, to the existing force of just 900. On Nov. 20, the day that the election schedule was announced, all government employees on contract in Attock were made permanent staff.

Back in Multan, small-scale local infrastructure schemes are evident across the city and its adjourning rural areas. Under the election rules, such development projects are not allowed, because they are seen as inducements. At Hirawat Basti village, for instance, a freshly dug trench of several hundred metres runs along the dirt track leading to the settlement because a gas supply is on the way. In Chawala, another village just outside Multan, a kilometre-long road is being built. Locals said it was the third day of construction. According to Muhammad Tayyub, a constituent in the village of Kotawallah, the local administration demanded the national identity cards of 100 inhabitants for development projects to go ahead.

"They have taken the cards so that, on election day, they can cast the vote themselves," Mr. Tayyub said.

He and other villagers said that polling stations in the area were moved from pockets of known opposition support to locations several kilometres away, to dissuade opposition supporters from voting.

As of Monday, the election commission in Islamabad had recorded 1,773 complaints of pre-election rigging, of which 641 related directly to nazims or the local bureaucracy. Polling stations were the subject of 358 of the complaints.

The latest opinion poll, released this week by the International Republican Institute, a U.S.-based group, found that the PML-Q held just 14 per cent support nationally, compared with 50 per cent for the Peoples Party. Even in its heartland of Punjab, the PML-Q was trailing third with 19 per cent. Opposition parties fear that, with poll numbers that poor, the compulsion to rig the vote will grow stronger.