KARACHI, Oct 31: A six-member delegation of the International Republican Institute visiting the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday surprised the waiting reporters by saying that they had nothing to share with them and that they would issue their initial assessment statement after a week. They insisted that the TV cameras be switched off as they did not want to publicize the event.

When the agitated newsmen asked what they wanted after all from the meeting, the visiting members of the Washington-based IRI said they wanted to know from them what problems could arise during the upcoming general election.

A senior reporter said there might be no problem during the polling. The actual problems would begin after the vote count as the results were often manipulated. He said, however, it would be for the first time that the returning officers would issue results to the candidates directly.

Another senior journalist spoke on the role of intelligence agencies, which he said were many. The international secret agencies were besides them. All of them, he said, wanted to play their part to get their desired results. Sometimes they were instrumental in inciting violence in certain constituencies to accomplish their aims.

A woman reporter representing an English daily spoke on the role of the feudal lords in getting the results of their choice. She said the feudals could easily influence their largely illiterate constituents to vote in their favour.

Representing an Urdu daily, a reporter spoke on the role of women voters. He said since most women here wore veils and their identity card photographs were also in that garb, it was difficult to sift the genuine from the fake voters.

Poll violence was another point reporters highlighted at the interactive meeting. They said candidates knowing that they were losing the polls often resorted to violence. They said the losing candidates could create mayhem to sabotage the process.

The visitors were interested in knowing about the role of the electronic media in elections. They were told that during the last general election there were no local independent TV channels to cover the election events and the emerging TV channels would be seen in action during the next election for the first time.

When the visitors asked what suggestions could be offered to make elections fair, a journalist said the problem was so complicated that there was no easy formula to disentangle the cobweb. However, another journalist said that there should be no interference by the military as it belonged to the barracks and had no business to run the government. Another journalist suggested that a larger number of foreign observers would be helpful in making the polls transparent.

The IRI team leader, Brian Joseph, said during their stay here they would have interactive meetings, besides media representatives, with politicians and civil society activists to assess the election process. He said the IPI, whose aim was to help promote democracy in the world, had offices in 50 countries and worked in a total of 85 countries. He said they would issue their assessment reports before and after the elections set to be held in January.—Naseer Ahmad