ECP to take up Benazir’s ‘media trial’
ISLAMABAD: Election Commission of Pakistan has assured a PPP delegation that the alleged ‘media trial’ of their leader Benazir Bhutto would be taken up in the commission’s forthcoming meeting to be held on November 19.
PPP Election Monitoring Cell Chairman Senator Latif Khosa in a letter delivered to the ECP Secretary Kanwar Muhammad Dilshad by a five-member delegation, Friday, urged the commission to look into the matter and take necessary action in this regard.
In the letter, Khosa has asked the commission to hire the services of international experts in order to ascertain the factual position of the advertisement whose contents, according to him, are highly objectionable amounting to Benazir Bhutto’s character assassination.
Khosa alleges that the ruling PML is behind the campaign to belittle Benazir Bhutto in the eyes of the people. “The slanderous campaign is against the law and against the code of conduct and you are to implement the law and the code of conduct,” the letter addresses the chief election commissioner.
In the letter Khosa demands that international forensic experts should be hired for audit and it will prove that the government money is being used for such advertisements. The advertisement appeared in a number of Urdu and English newspapers on Nov 14 and 15. Senator Khosa urged the commission to stop the media advertisement agency behind the anti-Benazir campaign and Gen Musharraf’s government has allegedly paid it $0.65 million for that purpose.
Khosa in the letter says that there is no mention of any media advertisement agency appeared in the newspapers. He demands that the commission should also investigate as from which source the amount had been paid for these advertisements.
On contact, the ECP secretary told ‘The News’ that the commission had already taken notice of the advertisements, adding the issue would be looked into in the commission’s upcoming meeting. The team made it clear that through malicious and concocted allegations the PML has tried to mislead the people about their leader. He added these ran contrary to the election commission’s code of conduct and wastage of funds from the national exchequer. He noted that Benazir Bhutto had never written any such letter, attributed to her in the ads and thus it being a fake document.
He said that through such actions, the government was trying to create an environment in which the masses would not have free access to media. “Media access to leaders of political parties is being denied, as they are under detention.”
The letter cautions that if the election commission remains indifferent to such a sorry state of affairs its credibility will be questioned and no one will trust the entire election process.
Asim Yasin adds: The letter further says that the media trial of Benazir Bhutto was being run at the state expense to malign the leadership of the largest political party of the country.
The letter says additionally full-page advertisements are being issued on state expense by both the Punjab government and the federal and the Punjab governments to project certain individuals.
The letter says that the Election Commission of Pakistan must issue notice to terminate the present specification mandate of duty given to the firm wherein to malign Benazir Bhutto, call for all correspondence with that Firm including by the government officials or any other deputed for the task and do an audit trail to find the source of money.
“The genuine political parties have been denied opportunity to state their position by creating a media environment where people of Pakistan have no access to independent electronic media,” the letter says.
It also says that the popular leadership of the political parties is under detention and is not allowed to interact with the media. Under these circumstances, we feel that possibility of fair and free election where all political parties are provided a level playing field is increasingly bleak.”
The letter asks the chief election commissioner to take the above steps immediately for fulfilment of constitutional obligation to hold fair, free and impartial elections.
The delegation comprised Kamran Zafar, Palwasha Behram, Tariq Malik, Shaikh Mansoor and Nazir Dhoki. The ECP’s Monday meeting will be a hectic one, as representatives of mainstream political parties are scheduled to interact with the chief election commissioner on the finalisation of the code of conduct for the January’s general election.
Source: The News
Date:11/17/2007
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