June 21, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Sani 05, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 20: A minorities’ organisation has alleged that 20 per cent of minority votes are missing in the fresh electoral rolls. Expressing concern over the 20 million unregistered votes across the country, All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) Chairman Shahbaz Bhatti, in a statement issued here on Wednesday, said millions of voters were missing in the provisional electoral rolls that clearly pointed to a plan of rigging the forthcoming elections.

He demanded that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) should form an ‘Election Monitoring Cell’ having representation of all the political parties and civil society organisations for monitoring the electoral process and to give independent recommendations accordingly.

“The Supreme Court should take suo motu notice of millions of missing voters and should direct the Election Commission for placing the voters list on its web page in order to make the citizens able to see the updated list,” Mr Bhatti demanded.

He said that confidence in the transparency of electoral process could not be sustained by verbal assurances, but by institutionalising a credible mechanism. Accurate and credible voters’ list was a prerequisite for fair and transparent elections, he added.