This is not good enough, say the city’s political parties

Jamaat-e-Islami's Nasrullah Shajjee says army personnel were not present in major parts of Karachi.

KARACHI:

Karachi’s political parties, even those who had challenged the verification of voter lists, in the Supreme Court were unhappy with the way it started off on Thursday.

“The Supreme Court had ordered [the ECP] to start the verification under the supervision of the armed forces, but the army personnel were not present in major parts of Karachi,” said the Jamaat-e-Islami’s Nasrullah Shajjee. “We will file a contempt petition if the SC’s decision is not implemented in letter and spirit.”

His party was against workers of the local government department and water board from going door to door to cross check voter lists. Shajjee argued that these were the same people who had prepared the first lists, which were being challenged for bogus voters.

“There is no proper check on them,” he said. “These people will do whatever they want.” The JI maintains, for example, that in 2008, 2,700 fake voters were registered in PECHS Block 2 without proper addresses. Thousand of voters were registered in PS-115, PS-166 and NA-251 (PECHS) where a family living in a portion of a house had registered 85 voters in a two-room flat. The same happened in a house by Aziz Bhatti Park in Gulshan-e-Iqbal.

A sceptical Awami National Party’s Bashir Jan said that while the Election Commission had assured them everything was going to plan but there was a sudden development late Wednesday night after which the role of the armed forces was trimmed. “I think the reconciliation policy has subtracted from voter verification,” he said. “This is a futile practice and our senior leaders and constitutional experts are discussing this.”

Similar complaints surfaced from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Rabita Committee member Wasim Aftab said that they would welcome the Supreme Court decision but would not tolerate it if the facts were distorted and their votes were deliberately affected. “We have traced thousands of bogus entries in the Nadra database,” he said. In some cases, the address of the Karachi Municipal Corporation was on the national identity card!

As expected the ruling party steered clear of making any controversial statement. “We respect the apex court’s decision and voter verification should be conducted under the supervision of the army,” said PPP information secretary Waqar Mehdi. “It is the election commission’s job to explain why the army and Frontier Constabulary have not been in the field.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2013.