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With only about 20-25 per cent of the electorate exercising their franchise in the October 10 general election, Pakistan recorded the lowest voter turnout in its history.
Apart from the absence of top leaders and former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharief, the election was also conducted in a half-hearted manner.
There are about 72 million registered voters in Pakistan. It was the first election in Pakistan's history in which the age for enrollment as a voter had been reduced from 21 to 18 years.
But about 7.5 millions voters could not exercise their franchise because the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) had failed to issue them an identity card (which was a must to cast one's vote) on time.
Several representations to the chief election commissioner failed to evoke any response, giving rise to speculation that it was part of the military regime's tactics to manipulate the outcome of the election.
Not that those who were left out of the election process had any reason to complain as those who were in the electoral fray could at best be referred to as second rung leaders.
Also, the military regime did not give the parties sufficient time to generate enthusiasm among the people for the elections. Thirty days was all they got and, even then, huge rallies and use of loudspeakers was not allowed.
This scribe visited several polling stations in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Polling agents of all the parties said they were satisfied about the fairness of the election.
There were no major incidents of rigging, but Sindh and the NWFP did record a few complaints of harassment of voters.
There were reports that in some rural areas of the country, voters were being brought to polling stations. But this is not uncommon with every political party arranging transportation for its voters.
Representatives of major news networks had converged on Pakistan and the elections were widely reported by the national and the international media. Private channels like ARY, Indus, UNI, Geo and others had even commissioned opinion polls.
Being unfamiliar with the trend of exit polls and the like, authorities were concerned when private channels began broadcasting 'unofficial results'.
One private channel Indus TV was reportedly approached by a few officials and asked to stop announcing the 'unofficial' results. But the channel did not succumb to the pressure.
As is the norm in such cases, all that the state-owned Pakistan TV could do was make 'official' announcements, which was of no interest to people who were getting regular updates from private channels.
Two days before the elections, the government had declared 9,521 polling stations spread across the country as sensitive and deployed army commandos at such stations.
Even then, 10 persons were killed and dozens injured in clashes between supporters of rival parties in several constituencies spread across Sindh, Punjab and Baluchistan provinces.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Peoples Party leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim on Thursday night left for London following a secret meeting with ISI officials and a top aide of President Gen Pervez Musharraf.
This has led to speculation that some kind of a deal is in the offing between the PPP and the military regime.
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