|
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s election commission said the date for
parliamentary elections would be announced today, with a delay until
February now in view following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
The January 8 vote, the next step along the road
to civilian-led democracy in Pakistan, was thrown into chaos with
the killing of the opposition leader last week, which set off days
of unrest that left nearly 60 people dead.
After urgent meetings Tuesday as officials tried
to assess the security situation across the country, election
commission spokesman Kanwar Dilshad said the date for the vote would
be made public today.
“After consulting the political parties, we
will give the date tomorrow,” Dilshad said Tuesday. He later told
Agence France-Presse: “It looks impossible to hold elections on
January 8.”
In remarks to reporters, Dilshad said political
parties needed to be consulted and that the Muslim holy month of
Moharram, which ends in Pakistan around February 8, was likely to
come into consideration.
He added that provincial governments had been
asked to report on security following the unrest, which caused tens
of millions of dollars in damages, and that they had said it should
be taken into account.
“They have all mentioned the month of Moharram,”
Dilshad said. Officials said it would be difficult to hold the vote
during Moharram, which begins January 10, because of religious
sensitivities and fears of sectarian violence.
Earlier, a senior official told AFP that the
vote would not be delayed beyond the end of February.
“We want the delay to be minimal,” said the
official, who could not be named. “But the election commission
needs a realistic amount of time to get things back on track.”
The government of President Pervez Musharraf is
facing calls from its ally and backer, the United States, not to put
off the January 8 vote too long, and opposition parties have been
arguing against a delay.
A wave of violence, arson and looting swept the
country after Bhutto’s assassination at a campaign rally on
Thursday, fuelled by outrage over her death and disbelief at the
government explanation of how she died.
At least 58 people were killed, most of them in
the southern province of Sindh, the seat of the Bhutto family’s
political dynasty where she was laid to rest Friday at a funeral
attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners.
Rampaging demonstrators ransacked election
offices in several places across the province, destroying voter
lists and hampering preparations for the elections, the senior
official said.
“The situation in Sindh is volatile,” the
official added. “It is very difficult for election staff to move
around.”
Several top officials confirmed that the
commission had decided to delay the vote but wanted to assess the
security situation in the provinces before deciding how long to
postpone it, the official said.
While daily life has been returning to normal,
the nuclear-armed Islamic nation is still feeling the aftershock of
Bhutto’s killing. Share prices were down 3.8 percent on Tuesday
morning after shedding 4.7 percent on Monday.
The United States, which counts Musharraf as a
key ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists, said
a delay would be acceptable if the major political parties approved.
It was not immediately known if they would do so.
Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is
the country’s largest. Her untested 19-year-old son Bilawal has
taken over as chairman, with his father Asif Ali Zardari as
co-chairman.
Zardari said Monday that the PPP would invite
other parties to take a “joint stance” in the event of a
postponement.
“If it so happens, this will not be the first
time that the dictator runs away from elections,” he added.
Public anger at the death of Bhutto, a
pro-Western politician with a huge popular following, has mounted
since the interior ministry denied her attacker—clearly seen in
videos firing a gun at close range—had actually hit her.
It said the two-time former prime minister died
banging her head on her car’s sunroof but also that the shooting,
followed by a massive suicide attack, had been orchestrated by al-Qaeda.
The PPP has demanded an international inquiry,
but officials have said it is out of the question.
-- AFP
|
