CEC takes note of advertisements against Benazir

The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) has taken notice of two advertisements in the national press, purportedly maligning PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and directed the authorities to place the matter before the Commission in its meeting scheduled to be held on November 19.
The PPP had taken up the issue with the ECP contesting that the advertisements flout the code of conduct for elections and were based on forgery. A delegation of the PPP called on the Secretary Election Commission on Friday and handed over a letter addressed to the Chief Election Commissioner by the Chairman Election Monitoring Cell, PPP, Senator Sardar Latif Khan Khosa.
The delegation included Kamran Zafar, Nazir Dhoki, Ms Palwasha Behram, Sheikh Mansoor and Tariq Malik. The letter called it an immoral and indecent media campaign launched against Benazir Bhutto by Pakistan Muslim League, said a statement issued by the PPP here.
It said that genuine political parties have been denied opportunity to state their position by creating an environment where people have no access to independent electronic media. Popular leadership of the political parties is under detention and not allowed interacting with the media. In these circumstances, we feel that possibility of a fair and free election where all political parties are provided a level playing field is increasingly bleak, it added.
Normally the name of the advertising agency appears with all the advertisement, but in this particular case, the name of the advertising agency has not been indicated that shows a clandestine nature of the campaign."
It was asserted in the letter that these advertisements flout the poll code of conduct on multiple levels, ie campaign is being run at the state expenses to malign the leadership of the largest political party of the country, the advertisement on November 14 was based on a forged letter.
Benazir Bhutto never wrote such a letter nor received any reply. Hands involved in forging such a letter must be identified. Additionally full-page advertisements are being issued on state expenses by both the Federal and Punjab governments to project certain individuals.
An international forensic expert should be hired for audit trail that will prove that the government's money is being used for such advertisements. The slanderous campaign is against the law and against the code of conduct and you are to implement the law and the code.
The letter further said: "It has been learnt that the Musharraf regime has also hired a new PR firm in the US to which it is paying $650,000 to hurt the political standing of Ms Bhutto.