The deputy convenor of the MQM coordination committee, Dr Farooq Sattar, told Dawn on Monday that “the MQM has grievances over the computerised voters’ lists. The party has received a number of complaints that the names of hundreds of thousands of its supporters have not been included in the draft list despite the submission of their forms.”
The MQM appears to be in rare agreement with opposition parties over the controversial electoral rolls. Both the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have challenged the computerised voters’ list in the Supreme Court and have referred to several alleged irregularities in the registration process.
PPP upset
The PPP claims that 71.8 million voters were registered in the electoral rolls prepared for the 2002 general elections but the new list prepared this year counts just over 52 million voters.
“Through various techniques, the names of many PPP voters have been excluded or deleted from the draft electoral rolls,” reiterated PPP MPA Shazia Marri. “In some cases, the enumerators refused to accept voter registration forms while in others, the forms submitted originally were substituted. For example, if the original form had eight names, it was replaced by one bearing only, say, two or three names. The names of fathers and husbands, and ID card numbers have been changed,” Ms Marri told Dawn. “The number of voters in areas that do not support the PPP has been increased, and in many dehs the number of voters is more than the total population estimated by the 1998 official data. This has been achieved by registering the same voter in two or even more dehs, and adding fictitious names with fake supporting ID cards.”
‘20m disenfranchised’
Echoing the same view, the president of the Sindh chapter of the PML-N, Salim Zia, said that the draft lists compiled by the Election Commission deprived about 20 million citizens of their right to vote. “If such a large number of people — who voted in the last elections — are prevented from casting a vote in 2007, it will be ludicrous to call the elections fair,” he pointed out, adding that in view of the current critical phase, Pakistan could not afford to ignore such a large chunk of the voting public.
“Particularly in areas such as Balochistan and the NWFP, it would be unwise to give people a reason to launch a movement on the basis of the new voters’ lists,” said Mr Zia.
In Karachi alone, over 1.65 million voters are reportedly missing from the draft electoral rolls, while in Sindh, the number of voters has decreased from 16.41 million in the 2002 lists to 11.43 million in the new ones. This would appear to indicate that notwithstanding the country’s growing population, the number of voters in the province has fallen by about five million in an equal number of years.
ECP viewpoint
Asked about this anomaly, Provincial Election Commissioner Qamar-uz-Zaman told Dawn that the lists prepared for the 2000 local government elections and updated for the 2002 general elections accepted proofs of identity in forms other than national identity cards. This, he said, had allowed the duplication of voters by about 30-35 per cent.
“The draft electoral rolls currently under debate were prepared on the basis of computerised national identity cards issued by Nadra,” he said, “and there is no longer any duplication except in entries referring to deceased voters whose families failed to notify the authorities or surrender their identity cards.”
Maintaining that the under-preparation electoral rolls are “a revolutionary step towards the holding of fair elections,” Mr Zaman said that the Election Commission does not have the power to extend the date of display of the draft rolls but under section 28-A of the Electoral Rolls Act 1974, the president does.
“There are 1,775 display centres in Karachi alone and a total of 11,837 in all of Sindh,” said Mr Zaman. “By June 30, approximately 0.15 million people eligible to vote but missing from the lists have had themselves registered. Voters who find their names missing from the draft rolls can be included in the final voters’ list by complying with the formalities of section 18 the Electoral Rolls Act 1974 and submitting an application to the assistant election commissioner with their computerised identity card.”
Asked about many political parties’ complaint that many display centres opened for a few hours only, while others were entirely non-functional, Mr Zaman said that this was “an exaggeration” and pointed out that the Washington-based International Foundation for Electoral System is monitoring the functioning of the display centres.
Whatever the reason behind the missing names on the draft electoral rolls, the issue is unlikely to be easily resolved. MQM leader Dr Sattar said that the exclusion of about 20 million voters is a matter of grave concern and added: “We believe there is a procedural lacuna between the Election Commission and the consultant firm responsible for computerising the draft electoral rolls.” However, he conceded that the decline in the number of voters could be due, in part, to factors such as the deaths of voters who were on the 2002 lists, or double entry and bogus registration. “There were several discrepancies in the 2002 electoral rolls which should not be repeated in the new, computerised lists,” he said.