ISLAMABAD – The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) raised questions on Thursday about the authenticity of the 2008 general elections, claiming in a report that more than 56 percent of the registered votes in Sindh turned out to be “bogus”, followed by Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The explosive report that NADRA sent to the Election Commission (EC) revealed that of the 19,755,994 voters (11,055,405 male and 8,700,589 female) in Sindh registered in the 2007 electoral lists, the authenticity of 11,058,640 – almost 56 percent – votes was in doubt.
Sources in the EC cast serious doubts on the 2008 general elections, which were held on the basis of these electoral rolls. Sindh is a traditional stronghold of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). The PPP won 93 of the provincial assembly’s 168 seats, followed by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), who won 51. Similarly, the PPP won 33 and MQM bagged 19 National Assembly seats from Sindh. The remaining votes of Sindh that could not be verified were said to be dubious as either they were duplicated, multiple or bogus entries.
More than 37 million votes – more than 45 percent of total votes – that were registered in 2007 had recently been declared dubious by the EC. The report divulged further that of the 44,661,925 registered votes in Punjab, only 26,632,379 (almost 60 percent) votes were verified. Punjab, conversely, is considered a stronghold of the second-largest party in the country, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which has 171 members in the Punjab Assembly and more than 90 percent of its National Assembly members were elected from the province.
Of the 12,084,308 votes of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, only 7,002,412 were verified, the report said. Balochistan topped the list with 65 percent of its votes termed dubious. Out of a total of 4,228,996 registered votes, only 1,450,203 votes could be verified by NADRA according to the report.
