Fraud fears haunt Pakistan vote

Al-Jazeera, Feb. 16, 2008

Campaigning will come to an end on Saturday[AFP] Pakistan's opposition parties have lodged thousands of complaints of cheating ahead of next week's general elections. Speaking on Al Jazeera's Frost Over the World programme, Imran Khan, a leading opposition politician said: "It is impossible, a joke, to call this election even remotely free and fair. "All the opposition parties, feel that on polling day there will be massive rigging. "But already what is called pre-poll rigging is going on at a massive scale. The entire state machinery is involved in a campaign for the government candidates." Opposition leaders Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari have promised street protests if they are robbed of victory. Heightening fraud fears is the release of a tape in which Malik Qayyum, the Pakistani attorney-general, is purportedly heard saying that Monday's elections will be rigged. Continued . . .