Election results against Musharraf: foreign journalists
The foreign journalists who came to observe Pakistan’s general election termed it a ‘referendum against Musharaf’ and the verdict of the people showed disagreement with Musharraf’s policies.
These views were expressed by the foreign journalists during an informal talk with The News on Tuesday.
According to these journalists, the turn-out in the election was 40 percent which is very low. Egil Bjarnason, a reporter of 24 Stundir (24 Hours), from Iceland, was quite surprised when people and even the government were happy that elections were held in peaceful manner, as he said that during election 20 people were killed in the country which, he said, was terrible. “All is well”, was really surprising, he said.
Commenting on the low turn-out, he said it was quite low that too was also disappointing for him. The low-turnout he said proved that people were really disinterested, disenchanted. ‘why was this so’ he questioned.
According to him, Pakistan would now embark on the road to democracy as people had given a mandate to the political parties, who were in exile for the last eight years, which proved that people wanted change.
Lionel Thompson, a reporter of Radio France, commenting on the election results, said that people of Pakistan had given verdict against Musharaf and its allied parties, which showed people’s divergence of views with the present Musharaf regime. About the wiping out of religious forces from the election scene, he said this too was another judgement of the people who wanted to get rid of the extremist forces.
Another team of journalists from different European countries said that election results were a setback to the Musharraf regime as all his major leaders are out from Pakistan’s parliament. Major upsets were seen during general election in the country, they said.
Source: The News
Date:2/20/2008
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