Islamabad
Election eve and a nation on the brink of either democracy or potential riots. According to latest reports there are at least 19 ways to rig the ballot tomorrow, and filming in Rawapindi this afternoon it took less than ten minutes to find false voter registrations being waved in our faces. The politics is far to inside baseball to try and explain the differences between PPP, PML and PMLQ, to be honest I have trouble figuring out who is who and what symbol they are using on the ballot, all I know is that the Bicycle party should beat the Arrow party, but they are not the main vote riggers so the Tigers may end up winning.
One of those days when it seems that things are not going to end, we flew overnight here from london, touching down around six am, a couple of down hours the out getting yet another 2 dog tags to wear, with the obligatory passport photo on them that make Hannibal Lector look good even with his mask on. Then a press conference from the Electoral Commission that is about as exciting as watching paint dry, before over to Rawapindi more filming back to the hotel, edit and feed, and this is all before New York is awake and we have to start out shift on New York time.
Now usually hotels have nice views and given what we are paying here I would of expected a view of the rolling hills, well I look out onto a building site that seems to be going 24/7.
Check out the workmen on the scaffolding, they are about six stories up with not so much as a piece of dental floss to secure them. Greg Palkot and I decided that if one fell we would not watch, six stories onto concrete
Having trouble uploading Pix , so will post sans graphic
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Saw Palkot on F&F this morning via your camera work. Looks like regular old honest elections are a thing of the past, Mal, in more places than just Pakistan. Add bombs at voting sites and we can understand why the voting might be light. Can also see why the news reporting might be light...but we can always count on the intrepid team of ...Palkot and James....sounds like a cheap wine doesn't it? Keep your blinds down and your lens cover off and be careful. Hope you have your dental floss with you in the form of body guards but at the price of hotel rooms Fox probably can't afford them for you. Good luck to your team and thanks since we do think the results are important to the world as well as to the people of Pakistan. Our own elections are important this year as well...strangely enough for the same reasons...this war on terrorism even if not everybody is aware of it. Sometimes we feel like we are high up on a scaffold with no dental floss.
N&A
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