"Winners Uncertain as Violence Mars Pakistan Vote"
"Fearful of violence and deterred by confusion at polling stations, Pakistanis voted Monday in parliamentary elections that may fail to produce clear winners and could result in protracted post-election political skirmishing.
A number of clashes among polling officials and voters resulted in 10 people killed and 70 injured, according to Pakistani television channels.
Voter turnout was low; in the North-West Frontier Province, which abuts the lawless tribal areas, turnout was only 20 percent, according to election officials. In Peshawar, the provincial capital, Islamic militants prevented many women from voting. Election officials estimated that only 523 of 6,431 registered female voters at six polling stations cast ballots.
CUI BONO?
In Lahore, the political capital of Punjab province, lines were thin, and many voters complained they could not find their names on the voting lists.... The party that has supported Mr. Musharraf, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q... would almost certainly have enough votes to form a coalition government, most probably with the Pakistan Peoples Party.
OH BONO?
A low voter turnout would benefit Mr. Musharraf’s party, they said.
Nervousness about suicide bombers was most palpable in Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province.
“We were thinking of not coming — people are afraid because of bombs and suicide bombers,” said Huma Shaqwell, 22, a college student....
And CUI BONO with the nutty "suiciders?"
Pfffftttt!
The voting got off to a poor start in Punjab, the most important province, with 148 of the 272 contested parliamentary seats. On election eve, a Pakistan Muslim League-N candidate for the provincial assembly, Chaudhry Asif Ashraf, was shot to death, and three others injured when gunmen opened fire on his car.
In Lahore, Fasih Ahmed, a businessman, said that by noon he had still not found his name on any list at the polling station.... Early in the day, voting in Rawalpindi, the sprawling city adjacent to the capital, Islamabad, was sluggish....
A number of those voting in Rawalpindi said they wanted change.
“We know who is going to win — “Q” is going to win, by cheating,” said Ammar Khalid, 23, an economics student, referring to the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, which backs Mr. Musharraf. “But we are still voting, for P.P.P.,” he said. “We want that there should not be a dictator. He is illegal and unconstitutional,” he said of Mr. Musharraf....
I am always amazed at HOW INTELLIGENT the Pakistani people are!
The AmeriKan MSM never portrays them that way.
From what the guy said, I'm really identifying and bonding with him.
In Gujrat, the stronghold of the Chaudhry clan who are the most powerful supporters of Mr. Musharraf, several polling stations were closed for periods of time because of arguments over voter lists.
In many places in Gujrat, basic election commission rules were flouted as police stood inside polling stations, and many polling stations looked like campaign headquarters for the incumbent candidate, Chaudhry Shujaat, who is also chairman of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q.
Numerous green flags of his party decorated the entrance to polling places. Men in civilian clothes with armbands saying “special security” and carrying long sticks patrolled many of the schools that were serving as voting stations. The men said they had been hired to work by the local government, which is controlled by a relative of Mr. Shujaat.
A worker for Ahmad Mukhtar, the Pakistan Peoples Party challenger to Mr. Shujaat, complained that the procedures at one of the biggest polling stations were so chaotic that voters had been turned away.
“By 11:30, only 70 votes have been cast, and 100 people have been turned away,” the worker, Shahida Naeem, who is the sister of the candidate, said as she argued with female polling officials.
Groups of international observers, including three United States senators and a team of more than 100 observers from the European Union, watched the voting at various places across the country.
One of the senators, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., of Delaware, said that if the vote went smoothly, he would argue for increased funding for economic development in Pakistan. “If the vote is viewed as credible, there should be a democratic dividend,” Mr. Biden said.
How about taking care of us at home, Joe?
Mr. Biden said he was prepared to recommend that the $500 million that Pakistan now receives annually from the United States for development be tripled to $1.5 billion a year if it was a fair election....
I'm insulted, readers!
And they won't get the $$$$ because it was a fraud!
But they probably will get the $$$$, even if that means screwing the American people.
Just another reason I'm sick of the damn wars, aside from killing innocent people who never did anything to us!
In Hyderabad, a major city in Sindh Province and the stronghold of the Pakistan Peoples Party, army rangers arrested police who had invaded a polling station, according to Umair Chaudio, a Peoples Party worker.
The police had joined forces with workers of the Muttahida Quami Movement, a junior partner in the last Musharraf government, inside a polling station to stuff the ballot box with about 700 false ballot papers, Mr. Chaudio said.
When word spread that the police were co-operating in the rigging, a truckload of army rangers turned up at the polling station, arrested the police and confiscated the ballot papers, he said."
Mushy RIPPED OFF THIS ONE, just you wait a couple days.
Definitely will not face impeachment of any kind -- like Bush in AmeriKa!
