September 10, 2006	Sunday	Sha'aban 16, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 9: Pakistan People’s Party has urged the Chief Election Commissioner to immediately intervene and stop the voters’ registration exercise in Sindh from being hijacked by a coalition partner in the provincial government.

In a statement here on Saturday, Sindh PPP President Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that the credibility of the entire exercise of registration of voters had been thrown into doubt because a coalition partner in Sindh government had forcibly taken over the task of enumeration from the enumerators appointed by the Election Commission and given it to its workers.

The entire exercise of preparation of electoral rolls has been threatened that calls for urgent intervention by the Chief Election Commissioner.

He said that soon after the schedule for house count and preparation of electoral lists was announced complaints of manipulation started pouring in from Karachi and also from some other Districts of Sindh.

After the takeover of the work from the officially appointed enumerators by the workers of the political party the work on enumeration of houses had come to a stand-still and fake voters lists were being made in Karachi, he said.

He said that in district west, voters belonging to other areas were included in the constituencies that are traditionally dominated by the PPP supporters. Several other areas and houses have been deliberately left out from the count, he said.

The PPP Sindh President said that a party delegation had called on the Election Commissioner Sindh and also apprised the CEC through fax but no action seemed to have been taken so far.

He said that apart from Karachi similar complaints were received from Larkana, Mirpur Khas, Nawab Shah, Khairpur, Ghotki, Sanghar, Kashmore and Hyderabad.

Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that the relevant laws governing the electoral rolls, the Election Commission was supposed to up date the voters list every year. He said that at present two voters’ lists were available; one was prepared in 2001 for LB elections and the other prepared for the 2002 for General Elections.

He said that in the presence of the two lists available and the law requiring the EC to update the electoral lists every year, there was no justification for preparing fresh lists for computerisation. He said that instead of preparing fresh list the present voters’ list should be updated and computerised.

Syed Qaim Ali Shah urged he CEC to look into the massive complaints of pre-poll rigging and not allow the hijacking of voters registration exercise.