Breaking News | Forum | UK News | USA News | World News | Political News | Sci-Tech News | War & Terrorism News | Sports News | Multimedia | Set Homepage

Translate:

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

Rani Singh

Unlike in, say, American politics, pre-elections polls are bit thin on the ground in Pakistan. The results of one, however, have been published by the Dawn. Conducted during January 2008, the US-based Terror Free Tomorrow poll finds that 70 % of Pakistanis want President Pervez Musharraf to quit, and that the PPP is the most popular party this side of the elections, with 36.7% of poll voters. The PML (N) of Nawaz Sharif follows with 25.3% and the PML (Q) which supports Musharraf comes in with 12%.

Dawn’s special correspondent Mohammed Ziauddin comments:

“A clean sweep for the PPP at the elections doesn’t fall into the gameplan of Musharraf, London, Brussels and Washington. So they will go along with Musharraf if he rigs and brings in a hung Parliament.”

Mohammed Ziauddin warns of possible dangers ahead:

“The lawyers’ movement, civil society and students are still there, and they’re spoiling for a fight. If there’s the merest hint of rigging, PPP supporters will come out onto the streets and their moaning will turn into marauding and riots. The lawyers cannot be subjugated.”

When I point out that the military can always be mobilised, Ziauddin replies that the army and the rangers will not fire at their own:

“In Punjab, Lahore for instance, many of the army have family members who support the PPP; they are inter-related. With lawyers, they can be baton-charged and tear-gassed. Their numbers are only in the hundreds. PPP supporters will be in the thousands. The only way to stop them would be to fire at them with bullets.”

Discussing censorship and his own newspaper group, Ziauddin says that though Musharraf sees him as an irritant, the President doesn’t see the Dawn as much of a threat as it’s printed and published in English. The diplomats and chattering classes who read it don’t count; they’re not a substantial vote bank. Musharraf is more concerned about the Urdu-speaking channels like Geo News which, as I wrote in an earlier blog, was subject to a 78-day blackout.

Speaking of which, and completely at a tangent, Geo reporters name their cameramen with each sign-off. Considering that the latter often have a trickier job and get less recognition than on-screen reporters, I think that’s a little bit progressive…

Have Your Say: The supporters and opponents of vote-rigging
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report here.

RSS TrackBack URL

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Related News

• London Demo Slams Musharraf’s Rights Abuses
• Pakistani president to be impeached
• Bush Stands by His Dictator
• Pakistan rejects CIA border operation
• VIDEO: Bhutto said Omar Sheikh murdered bin Laden

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 1:20 pm and is filed under General, Political News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Loading ...

ADVERTISEMENTS

SITE MAPS

7/7 Afghanistan Alternative-Energy Art BBC Big-Brother Bilderberg Biometrics Bush Censorship CIA Climate-Change Cover-Up Cults Culture Database-State David-Hicks David-Ray-Griffin Debt Democrats Demos Drugs Education Entertainment Environmental News EU False-Flag FBI Fraud Free-Speech Freemasons G8 Globalization Guantanamo Health-News History ID-Cards Internet Iran Iraq Israel John McCain Law Marches Media News MI5 MI6 Microsoft Military MoD Money Music NASA Neocons New World Order NSA Oil Pakistan Podcast Police-State Propaganda RFID RINF Rumsfeld Science Science & Technology News Secrecy Security Slavery Space Sports Spy Spying Stephen-Lendman Technology Terrorism Tony-Blair Torture TV UK-News UN USA- USA-News Video Voting war War & Terrorism News Warfare White-House Wolfowitz World-News Yahoo
2003 - 2005 Archives | 2005 - 2007 Archives | 2007 - 2008 Archives | Current Archives | Past Version