True to expectations, Pakistan President PervezMusharraf today overwhelmingly won the nationwide referendum he sought tocontinue in office for another five years, an exercise dismissed by critics as afarce with grave implications for parliamentary elections due in October.
Announcing the result, Chief Election CommissionerIrshad Hassan Khan said in a national television broadcast that of the 43.9million votes cast, 42.8 million ballots were in favour and 883,676 were opposedwith the rest invalid. That meant 97.7 per cent of those voting backed Musharraf.
Earlier, overruling complaints of by mainstreampolitical parties of largescale irregularities, the Election Commission had saidwith the bulk of the counting nearly completed, Musharraf has secured 3.65 crore"yes" votes against 6.25 lakh "no" votes.
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It said the turnout of voters in the "voteanywhere" referendum was an unprecedented 50 per cent, which was a recordof sorts in the electoral history of Pakistan.
Mainstream political and religious parties, whichboycotted the referendum, said the turnout was abysmally low at five per centand "inflated" official figures only proved their allegation oflargescale rigging.
In the first independent assessment of the referendum,Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), in a damning statement on theconduct of the referendum, said irregularities "exceeded its worstfears." "The manner in which the people were hustled into voting andthe flagrant abuse of election procedures degraded the very concept ofdemocratic choice," HRCP chairman Afrasiab Khattak said.
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In London, Commonwealth Secretary General Don Mckinnonsaid the referendum was not part of the roadmap to democracy and insisted on afull return to constitutional rule in Pakistan.
The victory of Musharraf, who named himself Presidentin June last year days before his visit to India for the Agra Summit, surpassedthe results of referendums held by Gen Ayub Khan in 1960 and Gen. Zia ul Haq in1984. Both prolonged their rule by suppressing democracy.
Critics of the government pointed out Musharraf hadtotally dispensed with electoral rolls and permitted people to vote anywhere inthe country with minimum identity procedures.
If he adopts such "farcical" methods in theOctober general elections, it would have grave implications, they said.
According to them, Musharraf, the country's fourthmilitary ruler since its formation in 1947, wants to use his victory in thereferendum to consolidate his hold over power ahead of the elections to thenational and provincial assemblies.
PTI
