Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairwoman Benazir Bhutto warned on Sunday that if the PPP did not emerge as the winner – and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz as a second – in the general elections, the results would be unacceptable. Benazir, addressing a rally in Larkana, said that not only would the results not be accepted but a protest would erupt much the same way as in the Philippines and Ukraine, arguing that she was taking this stand because an international survey had predicted that the PML stood no chance in the elections. “If the votes of the masses are snatched, the PPP, with the PML-N and other opposition parties, will protest,” she said at a big public meeting at the Municipal Stadium here. “The government is trying to block the PPP’s passage.”
The former premier also demanded that the Election Commission (EC) of Pakistan suspend the local governments before the general elections, as her party would not accept a “ghunda force” (thug force) upsetting the polling. “There is no need to recruit the police force for only three days ... they will bring their thugs in police uniform,” she said in a veiled reference to the use of government machinery. “We will not accept this. If force is needed to maintain law and order on the polling days, the EC should call in the Pakistan Rangers or Pakistan Army but not the thug force.”
Madrassas condemned: Benazir strongly condemned the Charsadda attack but argued that barricades have been put up for those who demand democracy while extremists roamed free. “We respect the original madrassas,” she said. “We received our education in Islam from the ulema of the madrassas but in ‘political madrassas’ no Islamic education is being delivered. They are teaching children how to make bombs, how to use guns, how to kill women, children and the elderly. It is not permitted in Islam, even in war, for anyone to harm a child, woman or the elderly.”