KARACHI, 6 July — Election monitors appointed by the Human Rights Group of Pakistan yesterday cautiously labeled the fourth phase of local council polls as satisfactory but noted that it fell well short of being a democratic exercise. Sher Ali Rizvi, chairman of the Human Rights Group of Pakistan, said that although all 105 coordinators of its citizens’ monitoring cell had not yet submitted their reports, the consensus emerging from available data and documents shows that the polling was indeed satisfactory.

But Rizvi points out that voter turnout is the ultimate test of any election and in that sphere the phased local bodies polls were unimpressive. Overall, he claims, there were no signs of election fraud and manipulation of results.

“Turnout of voters is essential because an election is a statement on representation of people,” Rizvi told News Features Service in an interview. “For instance, if there are 100,000 people living in an area and only 20,000 cast their ballots for the 500 men or so in the race, then the poll resembles a farce,” Rizvi said.

“This is perhaps why Pakistan has not been able to hold a democratic election in years,” notes Rizvi, who is the founder of the Human Rights Group of Pakistan. While there was a dramatic rise in voter turnout in the second and third phases of the civic poll, there are indications that the turnout plummeted in the fourth phase. Election officials, however, were unavailable for comment on the current and overall turnout figures.

The Human Rights Group blames the lower than expected turnout in the fourth phase on communication problems rather than mere voter apathy.

The average voter faced communication difficulties, according to the HRGP chief, and in many cases the polling stations were located far away from the homes of registered voters. Rizvi claims that a majority of the polling staff was untrained and not equipped to handle the task. “A fatal flaw in our system of holding election is the unnecessary dependence on untrained staff. This harks back to the tradition of appointing people on ad hoc basis.”

Still, he said, the government must be commended at least for attempting to introduce democracy at the grass-roots level. “Ours is very much a tribal society and people who are elected as nazims must at some point run the risk of direct confrontations with feudal lords and other such individuals, as their interests will be often at cross-purposes.”