WASHINGTON, May 1: Less than 400 Pakistanis living in the greater Washington area bothered to vote in the referendum on Tuesday. The area is generally believed to be home to about 50,000 Pakistanis, but it is unclear how many of them are still Pakistani citizens.
The Pakistan embassy here was declared as a polling station, and when day-long voting ended, 269 people had cast their votes. In addition, 120 postal ballots were received, and the yes vote was said to total 353. Four ballot papers were declared invalid.
The number of votes cast should be seen as including embassy personnel, believed to number nearly 80, most of whom were said to have taken part in the balloting.
This was the first time in Pakistan’s history that overseas Pakistanis were actually allowed to cast votes at a polling station in an electoral exercise. The embassy in Washington had made transparent arrangements for the voting, with observers from the community also invited to watch proceedings. But the best of arrangements could not ensure a respectable voter turnout, and the exercise here was marked, as apparently within Pakistan itself, by a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm and by the fact that the result was a foregone conclusion.
No indelible ink had been sent to the embassy from Pakistan, and ordinary stamp-pad ink was used to mark voters’ thumbs.
Meanwhile, in a report from Islamabad on the referendum, The Washington Post said while early returns showed Musharraf assured of “a lopsided victory”, less clear was the “crucial question of voter turnout”. The report pointed out that Information Minister Nisar Memon had having lowered the target, saying “a turnout of 25 per cent and above will represent widespread public support for the president’s economic and political reforms”. The paper also quoted the People’s Party as placing the turnout to be only five per cent.
DEMONSTRATIONS: The Pakistani expatriates living in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut failed to turn up in big numbers to vote in the referendum, writes Our New York Correspondent.
Out of estimated half million Pakistanis living in the area only 505 voted in the referendum which works out to a dismal 0.04 per cent.
The voting took place at the Pakistan Consulate in New York where mostly the employees of various Pakistani organizations like the banks, PIA and the officials of Pakistan consulate and the UN mission voted.
Several demonstrations against the referendum took place near the consulate but they remained peaceful. The office-bearers of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz group) and Pakistan People’s Party were seen near the consulate to monitor the polls.
POOR TURNOUT: The Pakistan Consulate in Los Angeles reported an extremely poor turnout in the referendum on whether to give military ruler Gen Musharraf five more years as president, writes Our Correspondent from Los Angeles.
The consulate, which handles 17 states, including California and Texas, where around 100,000 Pakistanis live, had reported a total of just 363 votes, including 91 through postal ballots and 272 from polling booths, official sources told Dawn .
The consulate had set up three polling booths in southern California, including one in its premises in Los Angeles, one at Lakewood, Orange County, near a Pakistani restaurant and another at a mosque in Diamond Bar, where, too, a large number of Pakistanis live.
Out of the total of 363 votes, 344 voted “Yes” to Musharraf and 19 stamped on “No,” making the overall percentage 95 per cent in favor of Musharraf.
“This showed how people are so much disinterested about Pakistan,” said a Pakistani-American Pervez Ansari.
LOW TURNOUT: Gen Pervez Musharraf has scored a landslide victory in his referendum in Greater Toronto Area (GTA) on Wednesday, writes Our Correspondent from Toronto.
Though the turnout was very low, the percentage of yes vote was high. Out of the population of nearly 100,000 Pakistani Canadians in GTA and adjoining areas, only 926 people turned out to take part in the referendum.
Of the total votes cast, 901 favoured Musharraf to stay in power and 22 voted against him, a polling agent said after the counting on Tuesday night.
He said three votes were rejected.
The MQM’s last-minute boycott call was said to be one of the factors for low turnout. “I was intending to vote in favour of Musharraf but because of party chief Altaf Hussain’s boycott call, I stayed away,” said Ahmed Ali, a strong supporter of MQM here.
As the polling began Tuesday morning, a small group of supporters of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto held a peaceful demonstration saying that the April 30 referendum was held only to prolong military rule in the country.