ISLAMABAD, Feb 15: The Citizens Group on Electoral Process (CGEP) has warned of election day violence in Sindh’s Badin and Thatta districts if the army is not deployed at polling stations.
The CGEP, a non-partisan group of eminent Pakistanis facilitated by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat), released a report on Friday after visiting the two districts. The mission was headed by former chief justice Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui
According to the report, voters expressed “fears of intimidation and harassment, both for their lives and livelihoods” if they dared “to speak out or vote independently”.
The mission found a Sindh caretaker minister and the Thatta nazim running an “all in family” campaign in the district, it said. “Large pictures of Sindh Caretaker Minister for Food and Agriculture Ijaz Shah Shirazi and the Thatta Nazim appear alongside the National Assembly and provincial assembly candidates of the Shirazi family -- three sons and two sons-in-laws of the caretaker minister and a son of the district Nazim (nephew of the caretaker minister) are contesting the election from the same district — across Thatta, while government buildings and property are also being used to place banners and hoist the Shirazi flags across the city,” the CGEP observed.
The returning officers, however, did not notice the “apparent and blatant violation” of the electoral laws and the code of conduct and said “that they have not had a chance to tour the city due to unavailability of adequate resources”.
The serious cause of concern, the mission said, was the large-scale irregularities and multi-entries in the voters’ list, which at the level of a union council, runs into thousands.
The report further said that in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, 257 FIRs were registered against the PPP candidates and workers in Badin, while 268 FIRs were registered in Thatta. “At both districts, the PPP candidates complained that while candidates and their workers were also directly nominated, nearly 100,000 persons were un-nominated in each district in these politically motivated FIRs which were now being used to politically victimise them at the behest of the district government.”
Opposition candidates were facing harassment as police snatched their vehicles being used for performing election duty, a fact to which the district government official agreed.
The group also noticed that the scheme of polling stations and the list of polling staff was a bone of contention between the candidates as the non-PML-Q candidates alleged that locations of polling stations had been changed to their disadvantage and voters would have to travel up to 60 to 70 kilometres to cast their votes.
In Thatta, opposition candidates alleged that the police were crippling their campaign. When the group checked with the district government, it was confirmed that 309 vehicles were required by the district government for the management of elections before and during the polling day and indeed, as a general practice, only the opposition’s vehicles were being commandeered.
The group also noted that the procedure of declaring a polling station sensitive had been unilaterally undertaken by the police without any meaningful consultative process involving candidates and the returning officers.
The mission comprised Justice (retd) Siddiqui, Lt-Gen (retd) Asad Durrani, former director-general Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence, Ghazi Salahuddin, columnist, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, executive director Pildat and Aasiya Riaz, joint director Pildat.