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Winners Uncertain as Violence Mars Pakistan Vote
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Feb 18, 2008 03:05pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Tuesday, February 19, 2008 09:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By JANE PERLEZ and CARLOTTA GALL
Published: February 19, 2008
LAHORE, Pakistan — Fearful of violence and deterred by confusion at polling stations, Pakistanis voted Monday in parliamentary elections that may fail to produce clear winners and could result in protracted postelection political skirmishing.
A number of clashes among polling officials and voters resulted in 10 people being killed and 70 wounded, according to Pakistani television channels.
Suppressed by fears of violence and vote rigging, turnout was low, which was expected to favor President Pervez Musharraf and the faction of the party that supports him, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q.
Within hours of the polls closing, however, several major defeats were reported for Mr. Musharraf’s party, which some of his party workers took as a harbinger of bad news to come.
Though no official results were yet announced, those parliamentary seats appeared to go instead to the Pakistan Muslim League-N, the opposition faction of the same party, which supports the president’s main rival, the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
By early Monday night, crowds of Sharif supporters had already begun celebrating as they paraded through the streets of Rawalpindi, the garrison town just outside the capital, Islamabad. Riding on motorbikes and clinging onto the back of minivans, they played music and waved green flags of Mr. Sharif’s party decorated with the party symbol, a tiger.
“The tiger has come!” shouted one man on a motorbike making a victory sign. “Long live Nawaz!” |
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