Gen sweeps polls, doubts stick

The number of votes cast in favour of Musharraf was 42.8 million out of a total of 43.9 million, Chief Election Commissioner Irshad Hassan Khan said.

The turnout at the last parliamentary election, in 1997, was under 36 per cent and the latest numbers might surprise independent observers who said polling stations were largely quiet in Karachi and Lahore. Opposition parties, which called for a boycott of the referendum and dismissed it as undemocratic, estimated a turnout of just five to seven per cent and called for Musharraf to step down.

‘‘It was farcical,’’ said I.A. Rehman, director of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). ‘‘The question of turnout is totally irrelevant because everywhere the votes were stuffed.’’

‘‘People have given their verdict and if political forces do not accept it, it will be a negation of democracy,’’ Information Minister Nisar Memon told State-run Pakistan Television.

Although Musharraf is popular among many sections for his efforts to stamp out corruption, his critics say he used State machinery to ensure a resounding referendum victory. Reuters journalists saw evidence of public sector workers being pressured to vote in an apparent effort to bolster the turnout, and, in one instance, saw ballot boxes being stuffed by officials and local government officers.

The US has refrained from criticising the referendum, but Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon said Pakistan would be monitored and discussed at the next Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group meeting. ‘‘The Commonwealth would be concerned if the referendum…were used to entrench any undemocratic form of government,’’ he said in a statement released in London. ‘‘We wish to see a full return to constitutional rule in Pakistan.’’

In a preliminary report, the Lahore-based human rights group HRCP said voting irregularities ‘‘exceeded its worst fears’’. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of self-exiled former premier Benazir Bhutto said the turnout — which it put at five per cent — was a rejection of Musharraf’s ‘‘dictatorship’’.

(Reuters)