Turnout Low as Violence and Confusion Mar Pakistan Vote

[spanone]

wanna bet musharraf wins????

LAHORE, Pakistan — Fearful of violence and deterred by confusion at polling stations, Pakistanis voted Monday in parliamentary elections that may fail to produce a clear winner and could result in protracted post-election political skirmishing.

A number of clashes among polling officials and voters resulted in 10 people killed and 70 injured, according to Pakistani television channels.

Voter turnout was low; in the North West Frontier Province, which abuts the lawless tribal areas, turnout was only 20 percent, according to election officials. In Peshawar, the provincial capital, Islamic militants prevented many women from voting. Election official estimated that only 523 of 6,431 registered female voters at six polling stations cast ballots.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/world/asia/19pstan.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

[endarkenment]

1. What is low about this is that our Bullshit Media System

insists on presenting this farce as an exercise in democracy, as if the dictator Musharif hadn't already completely violated any basis for confidence in the process or the outcome. It is likely that the remains of the two major opposition parties might actually win this election, but at this point that is almost irrelevant.

You have to poke through other news sources to get at the truth. Oddly enough Bloomberg manages to get it right:

Pakistan's two main opposition parties -- the late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party and former prime minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League -- both have called for Musharraf to step down. Sharif, 58, has gone further, promising impeachment proceedings. While not ruling that out, Bhutto's party has said it's open to sharing power with Musharraf.

Even a landslide opposition victory won't necessarily dislodge the president. Musharraf, 64, has the constitutional authority to dissolve parliament. That power and concerns about rigged balloting lead some analysts to predict that opposition clout will remain limited.

``The next government will most likely be a coalition led by a weak prime minister facing an arbitrary president,'' said Ishtiaq Ahmed, associate professor of international relations at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aIJ9.g2hXvm4&refer=asia