KARACHI:Sardar Ameer Buksh Bhutto, a noted politician of Sindh and son of Mumtaz Bhutto, said on Tuesday that the first phase of the local bodies elections in Sindh was a cruel joke perpetrated upon the people of Sindh.
“This was not an election in any shape or form. It was a selection. There were not even the faintest signs or pretense of fairness and impartiality in the process. Everyone from the DRO’s and RO’s to the polling station staff were the Sindh government’s appointed faithful servants who were under instructions to facilitate the victory of PPP candidates at all costs and they obediently discharged their duties without any shame or regard for law,” Bhutto alleged in a statement.
He said that the rigging began even before polling day as our candidate for the post of chairman of Warisdino Macho Union Council in Ratodero Tehsil was denied the opportunity to contest by excluding his name from the ballot paper because his vice chairman candidate had retired earlier, even though the Sukkur bench of the Sindh High Court had ruled that this would not disqualify the chairman.
Bhutto further alleged that there was open rigging on polling day before the eyes of the polling station staff as PPP polling agents and workers stamped ballot papers. “Even a PPP MNA joined in an effort to avoid defeat in his home polling station. Instead of stopping them, the polling station staff too brazenly started stamping ballot papers themselves,” he blamed.
He claimed: “When our polling agents objected, they were told that you can get us transferred from our jobs if you can. When our polling agents asked for police to be posted at polling stations they were told no police personnel were available. But if a PPP polling agent called a police officer to avert defeat at any polling station, the SSP himself would arrive with 10-12 mobiles and take away the ballot boxes.”
He said that PPP workers continuously harassed and assaulted their workers but the police refused to take action because of which many polling stations resembled a battlefield. He said: “If this is the kind of election the Sindh government wanted to hold, then it would have been better if they had just announced the list of winning candidates without this ugly pretence of an election which wasted billions of rupees of public funds.”
“The PPP is afraid to face its opponents and the wrath of public opinion in a fair election. They know they cannot win without rigging. There was a time when the PPP was as flag bearer of democracy. Now it is the flag bearer only of dishonesty, corruption and incompetence,” Bhutto concluded.