The following report was sent out by Taj Haider, Coordinator, PPP Central Secretariat, Karachi, today. It concerns allegations of rigging in the constituency that returned Farooq Sattar. In the interests of fairness, I intend to speak to Sattar to get his version of events as soon as he gets some time to sit down for a chat.

Posts about the MQM predictably generate a lot of heat here on KMB. Whatever the truth behind those points of difference, I think Sattar is definitely one of the more agreeable personalities in the MQM and I know many of the party’s political opponents feel the same way. He is a workaholic, approachable and relishes talking about policy if you want to engage him. It’s a pity that his election is mired in controversy.

DHANDLI NAMA, 19 February 2008

KARACHI

MQM broke all records of rigging, ballot paper stamping and high handedness in Karachi to make sure that the mandate of the democracy loving people of Karachi was reversed. While results from even the far flung areas were being shown on television channels Karachi results were held up and it was almost this morning when the reversed and highly manipulated results in favor of MQM were given to the channels.
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I would like to apologize to our readers to have bombarded with so many election result post that it was truly overwhelming. I have now consolidated the results in one place to help people understand the scenario in Karachi.
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Dr. Ishrat Hussain, former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan has been appointed the new director of IBA by the Governor of Sindh, Ishrat-ul-Ibad. He will be replacing Mr. Danishmand. The institute that claims itself to be the leading business schools in this part of the world, has also been approved to be upgraded to the status of a university after which the Dr. Ishrat would be its Vice-Chancellor.

Faris, at Emergency Times, tells us about his experience at two polling stations in Karachi, once in Clifton and on in Malir. Red more here.

At one, it was an easy task to vote, at the other, not so much, showing us both sides of the election process.

The Result for NA-249 Karachi XI have been announced on Geo

Khush Bakth Shujaat (MQM) – 53295
Dr. Mirza Akhtiyar Baig (PPP) – 43067

Registered Voters – 205400
Turnout –

KMB Election Watch Review of this constituency here

These elections have been confusing, many claim it to be free and fair, while others have a different point of view, though my blog is brim full of stories of the other side I care to only share here my own personal experience at having gone out to vote.

Did I want to vote? Plain and simple NO, Then Why Did I go to Vote? the answer was simply to nullify by vote so no one else could use the ballot. Was it legal? I don’t know? Was it my democratic right? I believe it should be, if I don’t have a candidate worthy of my vote I must have a way to say I do not agree, yet exercise my vote.

All day I had decided not to vote but when stories started coming in about blatant rigging. I scrambled and decided to nullify my vote. I went to my polling station, only to stand there for over an hour hunting for my name and not having found it, despite the fact that I had voted in the past few elections from 1997 and even seconded a candidate in 2002, but this time around I found my name absent from the voting list entirely even not traceable on the ECP Website as well.
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Elections 2008 Pakistan,Karachi. An ordinary citizen shares his experience of elections 2008. I present you the story as it was emailed to me. This in no ways means others parties are angels. I would love to hear other honest accounts of incidents. Please feel free to put your story in KMB suggest story section.

Guest post by Ameer Hamza
Click HERE & HERE for other similar stories

[ General Elections 2008 are now closed for polling. Soon, we will have the results and the usual violence which follows such announcements. And everyone is sure that the elections would be massively rigged in favor of the King’s parties.

To see for myself the rigging process I went out today with my friend, another KMB reader. First, we went to Gulshan-e-Iqbal NA-251 and PA-161 and later to PECHS. At both these places I could see lot of MQM men voting again and again. I wondered, wow how easily did they do it so openly?

I wanted the same adventure . . . & i got one
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Abdul Sattar Edhi while talking to GEO on security situation, when inquired about if he went to vote said that when he reached there he found that his name was not in the voters list. He inquired the officer about it & instead of replying him properly he was asked stupid questions like aap toh ab American citizen hain bla bla. . . .Edhi told GEO that he came back finally with his efforts in vain and without voting.

If this is the case with the pride of nation and the greatest of humanitarian then we can well understand the level of integrity on today’s election. Free & Fair elections . . . my BIG foot.[ Related : Abdul Sattar Edhi ]

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Zovc. says he found it near Khayaban-e-Ittehad Karachi. What you say?