Pakistan Election Coverage 2008

My day started at 4:30am in the morning as I heard a loud call to prayer from the nearest mosque. I was very excited that I as a person would cover the elections from on the ground in Lahore. I started visiting the polling stations at 8:00am

The streets of Lahore were very quite; February 18th and 19th are national holidays and the shops and offices are closed. I could see police and some army jeeps on the road.

The first polling station was a disappointment as only two women and about 50 men showed up to vote in the first two hours, There were more policemen, registration agents, polling agents from multiple parties and presiding officers at the polling booth than voters.

As the day progressed more people started to show, people were staying back home enjoying their morning off and due to concerns of violence. In the last 24 hours gunmen in Lahore and surrounding areas have killed 8 people and injured 40.

I saw various party organizers starting to panic at the low turn out and started sending vans to pick up supporters and bring them to the polling stations to vote. The turnout seemed to improve.

Voting in Pakistan is very interesting, people recognize their political party by symbols. For example PML-Q (Musharraf’s party) has the symbol cycle, PML-N (Nawaz’s party) is represented by the symbol Tiger or a Lion and PPP(Benazir’s party) is represented by the arrow. People cast their vote by placing a fingerprint and a seal over the symbol.

I also came across people that were saying their names were not on the registration list and others who were given a certain address for the polling station by the election commission but the police at the gates, of the polling station, told them to go somewhere else. So there was definitely Chaos.

Please watch my three videos attached in the video tabs outlining the elections...