USG SUPPORT FOR PAKISTAN'S ELECTORAL PROCESS

UNCLAS ISLAMABAD 003761 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV KDEM PK SUBJECT: USG SUPPORT FOR PAKISTAN'S ELECTORAL PROCESS Ref: Islamabad 2944 ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Post has been working with political parties, NGOs, donors and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to ensure Pakistan's upcoming elections are free, fair and credible. We are pleased that the Pakistan Supreme Court decided to act upon a petition filed by the Pakistan People's Party to expand the voter list. However, the methodology chosen by the ECP to implement the court order will corrupt the draft voter list completed to date with USAID assistance. Therefore, we have decided not to agree to the ECP's request for $4.3 million to implement its flawed methodology. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) On August 16, the Supreme Court issued a ruling on a petition filed by the Pakistan People's Party complaining that the 2007 draft voter list of 52 million names was short by an estimated 20 million names. The Court directed the ECP to expand the voter list within 30 days without requiring the use of certified identity documents. ¶3. (SBU) The ECP has chosen to implement the court order as they believe it was intended; this involves adding names from the flawed but larger (72 million name) 2002 list to the credible 2007 draft voter list. There will be no requirement to check for authenticated documents before adding names to the list. ¶4. (SBU) Under a contract with IFES, USAID funded computerization of the draft 2007 voter list; that work is nearly complete. During the Court proceedings, the GOP indicated that USAID would also fund the cost of this voter list expansion. After the verdict, we received a request for approximately $4.3 million to support the ECP's flawed voter list expansion project. Post is concerned that this process will corrupt the current credible 2007 list; therefore, we have advised the ECP that USAID support for computerizing the draft voter list will end when the initial contract work is completed. ¶5. (SBU) The U.S. will continue to fund, bilaterally and through a multi-donor basket of activities, programs to provide voter education, domestic election monitoring, training for political party agents, an international observer mission, projects targeted at increasing the participation of women and rural voters, and post-election complaint adjudication. ¶6. (SBU) In total, we believe our efforts will contribute to making Pakistan's upcoming elections more free and fair than they were in 2002. We do not want to undermine the credible work the ECP has performed to date, and we will continue to work with them in other avenues as they struggle to implement a difficult Court order to expand the voter list. PATTERSON