Tape caught Pakistani official (attorney general) saying vote will be rigged

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/27758.html

By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008


FAISALABAD, Pakistan — A prominent U.S.-based human rights group Friday released what it said was a recording of Pakistan's attorney general acknowledging that next week's national elections would be "massively" rigged.

Human Rights Watch said a journalist made the recording during a telephone interview with Attorney General Malik Qayyum when Qayyum took a second call without disconnecting the first, allowing his end of the second conversation to be overheard and recorded.

In the recording, Qayyum, Pakistan's top legal officer, can be heard advising the caller to accept a ticket he is being offered by an unidentified political party for a seat, Human Rights Watch said.

"They will massively rig to get their own people to win," Qayyum said, according to a transcript released by Human Rights Watch. "If you get a ticket from these guys, take it."

The potentially incendiary recording was made the day that elections were announced for Jan. 8, according to Human Rights Watch, which said the Urdu-language recording could be heard on its Web site, www.hrw.org. The polls for the national assembly and four provincial legislatures were postponed until this Monday after large-scale violence ignited by the Dec. 27 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The recording was certain to add to widespread fears that the polls will be rigged in favor of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party that supports the authoritarian and hugely unpopular president, Pervez Musharraf, a retired army general who seized power in a 1999 coup.

FULL story at link.

[BayouBengal07]

1. Did Musharraf install that AG?

I can't remember- did the former Atty Gen oppose his third term, so he fired him and replaced him with this guy and then declared the state of emergency?

That would be just greeeeeaaaaat....

[Doctor Cynic]

2. The riots begin in 3...2...1...