Could this be true? Or is she just upset that PPP won?
Larkhana, 18 Feb. (AKI) - By Josephine McKenna - The party of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistan People’s Party, was guilty of widespread election fraud and vote-rigging, according to her estranged niece, Fatima Bhutto.
In an exclusive interview with Adnkronos International (AKI) from Larkhana in Sindh province, Bhutto said she and her supporters had spent 12 hours travelling across the province on Monday and had seen “blatant fraud” by the PPP in the parliamentary elections.
“It is quite overwhelming,” Bhutto told AKI. “What we have witnessed on the ground has been a complete fraud.”
Bhutto claimed some voters had used fake identification cards, duplicate cards and illegal cards with no photos to cast their ballots.
She said some voter lists were incomplete and there were also allegations of intimidation by polling agents who favoured the PPP.
Bhutto, a journalist and author, is not aligned with a political party but supports the breakaway party founded by her mother, Ghinwa Bhutto, the widow of Murtaza, Benazir’s brother. Murtaza was killed in a police shoot-out in Karachi in 1996, when Benazir was prime minister.
Fatima Bhutto said on Monday she had received more than 50 complaints from people who claimed to have witnessed voting irregularities in Sindh province, considered a stronghold for Bhutto’s PPP, now led by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari.
“I witnessed rigging with my own eyes,” Bhutto told AKI. “They were allowing people, who were not registered, to vote.”
Pakistani election officials said at least 14 people were killed and nearly 100 injured in violent incidents during the election which reportedly recorded a low voter turnout.
While polling has ended the results of the ballot for a new national assembly and four provincial assemblies was not clear late on Monday.
Bhutto said independent election observers had absolutely no impact on the election and she would be talking to lawyers about filing an official complaint with Pakistan’s electoral commission.
“I have been part of four election campaigns since 1993, and I have never seen anything like this,” Bhutto said.
She said it was too early to determine the election outcome.
Although President Pervez Musharraf was not contesting the election, it was widely seen as a referendum on his eight years in power and expected to determine his political future.
The election commission said turnout was about 15 percent early on Monday.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Politics/?id=1.0.1888860808
