WASHINGTON/TORONTO, 4 May — Major newspapers in the US denounced the move by Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf to legitimize his rule and tighten his grip on power through what they called a sham referendum.
The Boston Globe in an editorial called it a political variation on hypocrisy while the Baltimore Sun, describing the referendum as "an eye wash in Pakistan," said Musharraf’s move to extend his grip on presidency by five years is troubling and disappointing.
Terming it as "Pakistan’s Dubious Referendum," the New York Times said editorially that it was to no one’s surprise that Musharraf almost certainly won a rigged referendum in Pakistan awarding him another five years as president. Even less surprising, the general’s aides proclaimed the results a vote of confidence.
"But either out of indifference or protest, most Pakistanis declined to participate in an election that was preceded by curbs on dissent. The balloting has diminished Musharraf’s stature and he must now take aggressive steps to restore democracy with a vigorously contested parliamentary election, due in October."
According to leading Canadian newspapers. "Fair, free and transparent. Pakistan’s deeply flawed referendum conferring another five years of power on Gen. Musharraf appears to have been none of the above," said The Globe and Mail in its editorial comment Thursday.
The Washington Post said Musharraf had in a recent speech to the nation sought to personalize the question of whether far-reaching changes should be made to Pakistani democracy, telling voters they should decide whether "I’m required or not."
If history is a guide, many Pakistanis will simply ignore such appeals — turnout for past referendums has been extremely low — and Musharraf will effectively fail to obtain the popular mandate he seeks. If he is really "required" for Pakistan, Musharraf should be able to work within a legitimate democratic system. If he is unwilling to do that, continued US support for his rule would be a mistake, the daily wrote.
The Boston Globe said in its editorial "Musharraf’s Conscience" that an electoral sham such as the referendum on his rule staged April 30 by Musharraf ought to be regarded as "a political variation on hypocrisy: The tribute vice pays to virtue."
Political parties and human rights groups complained that the claimed turnout rate — 70 percent — and the final yes vote for Musharraf — more than 97 percent — were ludicrously inflated.
Critics alleged that civil servants were pressured to cast ballots for Musharraf and ballot stuffing was observed in many places.
The only value to such an exercise in electoral make-believe is that it betrays a guilty conscience about Musharraf’s lack of democratic legitimacy, the daily said. What’s the point of the referendum, questioned the Baltimore Sun. And why hold a referendum that was as brazenly and egregiously rigged as the one Pakistan endured this week? Ballot boxes stuffed, registration rules ignored, civil servants and prisoners rounded up to vote — it was a gala of fraud, claimed the Sun.
Several Pakistani newspapers sent their reporters out to vote as often as they could, to see what would happen. Four ballots per person were typical. The turnout was reported variously at 60 percent and two percent. More likely it was somewhere in between.
Musharraf, results showed, got a 98 percent "yes" vote. Outsiders can only speculate as to how that was conjured up, said the Sun article. Did 97 percent really seem too low to those who cooked the final figures? Was 99 percent really too high? Musharraf comes out of this referendum with less legitimacy, not more. Granted, his is not a country that has had a long history of legitimate rulers — but it matters now, and to Americans, among others.
Pakistan has the potential to become an even bigger headache for the US than Afghanistan is, because it is larger, more developed and geographically crucial, warned the Sun.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times Shaheen Sehbai, who recently resigned under government pressure as editor of The News, a leading English newspaper in Pakistan, said Pakistan’s fourth military dictator, Musharraf, has made a critical decision in his 30-month tenure: To jump into the murky, treacherous waters of Pakistani politics.
That this decision was unnecessary, irrational and not in Pakistan’s best interests is now irrelevant. By holding such a referendum, Musharraf has not just put his head on the line; he has created a climate of uncertainty that should alarm the US and its international allies, said Sehbai.
