By IANS
Islamabad : Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has accused the Election Commission (EC) of Pakistan of showing “many worrying signs of corruption, bias” and failure to act on “the complaints of fraud”.
In an article published by the US based Christian Science Monitor, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairperson wrote that if credible elections are not held, it would have dangerous consequences for Pakistan and the rest of the world. Extremism will continue to grow, putting everyone at risk.
“The world must … insist on free and fair elections in Pakistan,” she said.
She wrote that President Pervez Musharraf’s last term in office demonstrated that dictatorship has fuelled extremism, according to Daily Times.
Democracy, she stressed, offers the best hope of containing extremism, but it depends on a fair electoral process. That is not happening, she complained.
According to Bhutto, who returned Pakistan on Oct 18 after eight years of exile, ghost polling stations dot practically every parliamentary constituency. Electoral lists are fatally flawed, with more than 10 million unverified and missing names. The sanctity of any future ballot is doubtful against reports that district returning officers have been ordered to disperse 20,000 ballots that have already been marked.
These ‘bogus’ votes, she said, will be ‘cast’ through the process of double voting in the ‘improvised’ voting stations – in ballot boxes that are “translucent rather than transparent.”
She said that in Punjab, out of the 148 seats, 108 have been marked for rigging for government-backed candidates. By the time all such reports of fraud come in from across the country, the elections will be over.
Bhutto complained that there was also no plan in place to ensure that votes counted at voting stations would be delivered to local consolidation centres without being manipulated en route.
“At the very least, America can and should prod Musharraf to give Pakistanis an independent Election Commission, a neutral caretaker administration, and an end to blatant vote manipulation,” she stressed.