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Musharraf's men expect 25pc turnout

Voters dragged to polling booths, 'yes' votes stuffed

REUTERS, Islamabad
PHOTO: AFP President Pervez Musharraf casts his vote in the presidential referendum in Rawalpindi city yesterday. Musharraf said he was confident of a victory in the referendum that would grant him five more years in power.
Counting began shortly after polls closed in Pakistan yesterday in a controversial referendum to extend military President Pervez Musharraf's rule, with the government saying it would be happy with turnout of 25 per cent.
Musharraf, voting just after midday, said he was "very confident" of a victory that would grant him five more years in power.
Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999 but has since become a key US ally in the war on terror, has asked for a mandate to remain in power to continue economic and political reforms and to check religious extremism.
"We believe that a voters' turnout of 25 per cent and above will represent a widespread public support for the president's economic and political reforms in the interests of the country," Information Minister Nisar Memon told the official APP news agency.
But evidence emerged that machinery of the state was being used to influence the result, with many public sector workers saying they had been pressured into casting their ballot.
A Reuters team also saw ballot boxes being stuffed with "yes" votes by an official at one polling station in the city of Rawalpindi.
Pakistan's political parties oppose the referendum as undemocratic and unconstitutional and have called for a boycott, but Musharraf has dismissed them as being divorced from public opinion.
Forced to vote
Many of Pakistan's roughly five million public-sector employees complained they were being forced into polling booths.
At one polling station at a government college for women in Rawalpindi, the presiding officer stuffed ballot boxes with several "yes" votes in view of a Reuters team.
"I have been told by the principal to complete 500 votes at my booth," she told Reuters, explaining that only 150 people had cast their votes. "What can we do? We are government servants and we have to do our job."
Also in Rawalpindi, around 100 employees of the state's Water and Sanitation Authority arrived at the Islamia High School polling station with their superiors.
"We are being dragged to vote," one employee, who declined to give his name, told Reuters.
The government denied putting pressure on its employees.
"If you force me to go and vote, you cannot force me to say 'yes,'" Information Secretary Anwar Mahmood told Reuters. "If you force me, I will go and vote 'no'."
Journalists saw a police inspector open several ballot papers at the polling station to see which way people had voted, and he also brushed aside polling agents' objections when one man turned up to vote without an identity card.
There have also been fears Musharraf supporters will vote more than once, especially as there is no
electoral list.
In Lahore, a group of around a dozen people, each with both thumbs marked with indelible ink indicating they had already voted twice, turned up at one polling station to try to vote a third time, but were refused permission.
At several polling stations in Peshawar indelible ink was not being used, and local councillors openly told people to vote "yes". "While working in government, you can't say 'no'," said one civil servant voting alongside his colleagues in Islamabad.