Asif Ali Zardari Writes About Musharraf

March 17/ 2008, was a momentous day for the people of Pakistan, but a bittersweet day for me. Sitting in the gallery watching a democratically elected National Assembly headed by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and its coalition partners, I thought of the terrible price paid for this moment of liberty. I thought of the [...]

Guardian Article: Post Election Scenario

Declan Walsh in Islamabad The Guardian, Saturday February 23 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/23/pakistan This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday February 23 2008 on p26 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:06 on February 23 2008. Pervez Musharraf’s allies received a drubbing in Monday’s elections. Now he faces the prospect of being impeached [...]

Voter Turnout in Karachi

According to Election Commission of Pakistan data more people in Karachi came out to vote in the elections in 2008 than in 2002.  In NA 252, where there were 277,553 registered voters, 117,550 votes, i.e. 42%, were cast, as against 33.27% in 2002, showing an increase of 9.08%. Similarly, in NA 253 from a total [...]

Family Politics Continue

By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor   Lahore. Hamza Shahbaz Sharif looks almost wistful as he considers why he decided to run for a parliamentary seat in the elections scheduled for Feb. 18. “You know, in all these third-world countries, the whole family gets dragged into politics,” he says. As [...]

PPP’s Alliance with the PML-Q?

http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/feb/20guest.htm Mohammad Shehzad | February 20, 2008 |  The 2008 elections were the greatest surprise not for the people of Pakistan, but for President Pervez Musharraf and his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid. The PML-Q has suffered a humiliating defeat, which made Pakistanis think that elections were fair. But the fact is, the elections were [...]

The Outcome of the Feb 18 Elections

The February 18 national elections in Pakistan may have had one of the lowest turnouts in history but it delighted almost everybody. There is hardly anyone who is not shocked by the extent of the rout of the king’s party that ruled for the past five years against the wishes of the masses but with [...]

Attorney General Goofs Up Once Again

(New York, February 15, 2008) – In an audio recording obtained by Human Rights Watch (http://hrw.org/audio/2008/urdu/pakistan0208.htm), Pakistan’s Attorney General Malik Qayyum stated that upcoming parliamentary elections will be “massively rigged,” Human Rights Watch said today. In the recording, Qayyum appears to be advising an unidentified person on what political party the person should approach to [...]

Lack Luster Elections

The February 18 elections to the 272 national assembly seats, and for the four provincial assemblies, are perhaps the most lack luster in the country’s history. The people remain uncertain as to whether the elections would be conducted in a free and a fair manner although everyone, including the observers, remain clueless as to how [...]