This is the million dollar question that the foreign observers that are in town are asking. The local election observers and Pakistani citizens aren’t even bothering asking this question. For they know the answer based on the following facts:
1. The Fair and Free Election Network (FAFEN), an independent coalition of nongovernmental organizations with observers in more than 260 districts around the country, said that one of the most frequent complaints they have received is of “police harassing candidates and/or workers of certain political parties by threatening that they will register cases against them.
2. The government appointed 59 civil judges in early January across the North West Frontier Province. Eleven civil judges were transferred. As well as investigating complaints, district judges are also responsible for aggregating the vote count on polling day.
3. Human Rights Watch has records of at least 90 transfers of officials in Sindh province. After the announcement of the election schedule, several police officers were transferred across Sindh. Some were posted as station house officers (SHOs) to police stations of Kharipur district in Sindh. When the assistant election commissioner (AEC) in Jacobabad, Sindh, Liaquat Ali Afridi, refused to change polling procedures or reduce the number of polling stations from 259 to 226, he was transferred and replaced with Hisaam Soomro, a relative of the caretaker prime minister in Sindh.
It is no wonder then that the Human Rights Watch today declared that the “election machinery cannot be considered impartial “ because of “the failure of Pakistan’s Election Commission to act on allegations of irregularities.
