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| August 27, 2005 | Saturday | Rajab 21, 1426 |
Chaos, disruption order of the day
ISLAMABAD, Aug 26: Chaos, disruption and total mismanagement were witnessed in the recently concluded two phases of local government elections during which over 50 people lost their lives.
This was stated by Pattan Development Organization Coordinator Sarwar Bari while releasing findings of a survey of the Local Bodies Elections 2005 at a news conference on Friday.
Mr Bari demanded setting up of a judicial commission to find out the factors responsible for largescale killings during the two phases of the polls.
He also criticized the statements of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and acting Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar in which they declared that elections were held in a peaceful manner and said such incidents of violence did happen in elections.
He also demanded of the government to announce compensation for the heirs of those killed during the elections.
Giving details of the findings, he said the incidents of violence, chaos and disruption in voting had been reported from a “relatively higher number of polling stations”, surveyed by the Pattan Development Organization during the just concluded LG Elections 2005.
During the two phases of the elections, he said, as many as 4,094 people, 498 polling agents and 398 polling staff were interviewed to draw an indepth understanding of the election process on the polling day.
The survey was followed by a countrywide monitoring of the election process by Pattan’s teams in more than 60 districts of the country.
Mr Bari said the government’s security arrangements were “inadequate”. He said in most cases, tension among contesting panels was rising in days prior to the polling day which should have been anticipated.
However, he said, the failure to pre-empt such incidents caused violence, resulting into the death and injury to such a large number of people.
He said two Pattan staff members were beaten and forced to leave a polling station in Khairpur. He alleged that the attackers belonged to the panel having affiliations with PML- Functional. He regretted that the presiding officer did not only allow the candidate inside the polling station but also took no action to stop the abuse of legally sanctioned poll observers.
Mr Bari said several incidents were reported about suspension of voting process in polling stations reflecting “bad management and ill-preparedness on the part of both the government and the election authorities”.
A high number of polling stations, “41 out of 102 surveyed”, were opened much late than the stipulated time of 8am, primarily due to late arrival of the polling staff, he added.
He said another manifestation of ill-preparedness was chaos at the polling stations. This was particularly a serious problem at the female polling stations which were being managed by staff apparently not well-versed with handling of the voting process.
This could be due to lack of training of the staff which was the responsibility of the election authorities, he said. Moreover, he said, the absence of women police were one of the factors that led to disorderliness and chaotic voting at female polling stations.
One of the serious issues that came to surface through the survey was the location of polling stations in places that were not legally permissible.
He said as many as 10 polling stations out of the 102 surveyed were housed in private buildings which was a serious breach of election laws.
Legally, only public buildings can be used for the purposes of polling stations.
As many as 1,019 out of 4,094 people interviewed at 102 polling stations said they were given advice inside the polling stations about the candidate to vote for. This is a serious breach of the election laws that was committed by candidates of both government and opposition parties, he added.
About the voters’ turnout, he said, it remained 43.3 per cent at 61 of the 102 polling stations surveyed during the second phase of the local government elections, which was much lower than the turnout in the 2001 elections.
On the basis of its research, he said, Pattan demanded of the Election Commission of Pakistan to make electorate-centred arrangements to ensure easy and smooth voting by public. Moreover, a database of polling stations and inventory of their facilities needed to be prepared in order to better plan the polling arrangements.
He also stressed the need for investing more resources in the training of polling staff as well as polling agents. Moreover, he said, a corps of volunteers comprising college male and female students could be mobilized and trained to assist polling staff and police in ensuring smooth polling process.
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