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| September 30, 2002 | Monday | Rajab 22, 1423 |
Opposition vows to launch drive against polls-rigging
ISLAMABAD, Sept 29: Opposition leaders have threatened to launch a nationwide movement against President Gen Pervez Musharraf if his government manipulates the results of the next month’s general election.
“The government has started pre-poll rigging. Police and state machinery are being used openly to muster support for pro-government candidates,” said Zafar Ali Shah, vice-president of deposed premier Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N).
“They are trying to loot the elections to bring their favourites into parliament,” Mr Shah said, alleging “naked” interference in the electoral process.
“Police twice removed my banners and pasted posters of the King’s Party candidate,” he told AFP, referring to a Pakistan Muslim League faction (PML-QA), which supports Musharraf’s political and economic policies.
Several other leaders, including cricket hero-turned politician Imran Khan and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s aide Nisar Khuhro, said provincial governors in Punjab and Sindh were announcing grants and development schemes to woo voters.
Mr Shah, who is contesting from the twin-cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, accused the state-run PTV and radio of ignoring PML-N candidates and promoting PML-QA nominees, who are likely otherwise to be defeated.
“It appears as if PML-N does not exist in Pakistan,” he said. “But if the government tries to manipulate the results, political parties will react strongly and the country may be plunged into a political crisis.”
Former army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg also warned that a countrywide protest campaign would be launched if the pro-government party was brought to power through rigging.
Mr Beg, who has formed his own Awamai Qyadat Party, was quoted as saying in Dawn that his candidates were being harassed and forced to join the PML-QA. The nomination papers of several of his candidates had been rejected without justification, he was quoted as saying.
Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani, leader of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six politico-religious parties, also said his group would resist attempts to rig the upcoming elections.
A countrywide movement would be launched if the pro-government candidates were favoured in any way on the polling day, he said, speaking at a public meeting in Faisalabad.
The MMA leader criticized Musharraf’s pro-US policy. “Conspiracies are being hatched to make Pakistan a secular state but religious leaders and activists will not permit anyone to do so.”
However, Information Minister Nisar Memon in a BBC interview this week rejected the criticism, saying that there were no government favourites.
“The people of Pakistan are intelligent enough to decide whom to vote for in the elections,” he said.
Pakistani religious parties launched a nationwide movement in 1977 against alleged rigging of elections by then premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, which culminated in a military coup by Gen Mohammad Ziaul Haq.
The October 10 election will be the first since army chief Musharraf deposed Sharif and seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999.
The election commission has rejected the candidature of both Mr Sharif and self-exiled Benazir Bhutto, citing recently drafted laws which bar convicts and absconders from contesting elections.
The allegations by political leaders coincided with publication in a newspaper of an internal European Union (EU) election observers’ document.
According to the Daily Times, it says that the government’s decision to bar top opposition leaders “seems to have no legal basis at all.”—AFP
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