Pakistan vote step forward, but irregularities: EU

Election campaign marred by violence and irregularities says European Union observer mission.

ISLAMABAD: High turnout in Pakistan's landmark election was a positive step for democracy even though the campaign was marred by violence and irregularities, a European Union observer mission said Monday.

Violence in the run-up to polls and on election day itself killed over 150 people, according to an AFP tally, as the Taliban set their sights in particular on secular parties that made up the outgoing government.

Saturday's vote was the first time a civilian government has served a full term and handed over power to another in a country that has been ruled by the military for half its life.

Violence during the campaign and on election day had been "terrible, but must not overshadow the achievements of the process", Member of the European Parliament Richard Howitt told a news conference.

"The turnout in defiance of the threats against the process was an extraordinary vote of confidence in democracy itself," he said.

"This election was a step forward, but one from which we call on all those elected to sustain their commitment to reforms, in the interests of good government for the people and governance for the state."

Michael Gahler, chief of the mission, congratulated Pakistan's election commission for improving its election law and voter roll, as well as ordering re-polling in a contested seat in Karachi.

But the mission said "women and vulnerable groups" were persistently under-represented" despite nearly three times the number of women candidates and a higher women's turnout than at the last polls in 2008.

Observers said voting procedures were mostly followed and that in a "vast majority" of stations all essential material was present, but they classified nine percent of stations visited as "poor or inadequate".

But the mission did not go at all to the southwestern, insurgency-torn province of Bal0chistan or the semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have strongholds.

It also only "undertook limited observation" in Karachi, where observers saw "some serious problems in polling and were also restricted in their activities".

Karachi was the focus of most complaints reported by rival political parties.

A separate mission by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) recommended that polling results be declared null and void in seats where women were not allowed to vote.

The NDI-ANFREL mission head, former Norwegian prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, said: "In most places of the country, the vote was a credible expression of the will of the people."