In what continues to be trumpeted as a free and fair elections it seems the Government of Pakistan is keen to push out International Republican Institute (IRI) from properly monitoring the elections. IRI is a U.S. democracy-building institute funded by the US Congress and it has come on record to say that it is being pushed out of Pakistan by President Pervez Musharraf’s government, who is refusing to issue new visas for the institutes top two Pakistan based US National officials or even allow the group to perform exit polls at upcoming parliamentary elections.
The Pakistani government has told the two U.S. citizens responsible for IRI public-opinion polls that they will have to leave the country in three weeks because their visas will not be renewed, said Robert Varsalone, the country director for IRI. The government tried to end their visas in January but extended them a month after coming under diplomatic pressure. “We’ve been told essentially, this is it for you,” said Varsalone, who has been in Pakistan more than a year. “We always tried to be honest brokers of information.”
In other news IRI has also refused to send in more staff over to Pakistan as it seems the Government of Pakistan cannot assure them security and safety. So by the looks of it, these elections are to be monitored by two people who are already under the gun lest they make a fuss about the election results, in all likelihood we are definitely in for a sham elections.
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2 responses to “Pakistan pushing out IRI Election Observers”
So much for Free, Fair oh and “Peaceful” elections; Musharraf cannot even guarantee safety to observers.
IRI has done an excellent job of bring us the public opinion. Here is the result of last survey they did on 13 December: http://www.iri.org/mena/pakistan/pdfs/2007-12-12-pakistan-poll.pdf (PDF file). As you can see, Musharraf is at an all time low, 21% popularity.
Here’s a pretty good article on the topic by Kamila Hyat “Omens before elections”: http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=94980
Its shameless on Musharraf’s part; I hope they catch him red-handed and send him to justice
Please note felllow Pakistanis that Musharraf the dictator will never let people of Pakistan express their right of chosing their own leader. He simply can not afford it. He knows the moment populer leardership is in power, he has no chance and probably he will be behind the bar and chraged under article 6 of the constitution. His master USA is also secretly their to support the dictator in Pakistan serving US interest in rigging the elections.
But if people have strong will and are determined that they are going to thwart all such efforts leading to rigging in the polls, Allah WIlling there is no power that can go against the collective awakening of the masses in a country. It is just a matter of awakening of people of Pakistan that matters now. Else it may be our sons and kids dying in so called war on terror.