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Download PDF Pakistan yesterday postponed general elections until February 18 following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, which sparked days of unrest that left dozens of people dead.
Benazir’s party and others have opposed the delay but with many election offices wrecked in the unrest that convulsed the nation after her killing, election officials said the delay was unavoidable.
“In the light of the circumstances, the new date for general elections is 18 February 2008 instead of January 8,” Chief Election Commissioner Qazi Mohammad Farooq told a news conference.
“I assure all political parties that the elections will be fair, free and transparent. I appeal to them to accept this decision in the supreme national interest and participate fully,” he said.
The election is seen as a crucial next step in the transition to civilian-led democratic rule in Pakistan under Musharraf, a close ally in the US-led “war on terror” who stepped down from his other post as army chief just weeks ago.
Senior officials had privately confirmed since Monday that the vote would be delayed, but the public announcement was delayed by talks with main political parties amid an uproar over the delay and the government response to Benazir’s death.
“President Musharraf will highlight the need for unity in the nation after the tragic death of Benazir Bhutto, and how terrorists are trying to undermine the country’s security,” a senior official who could not be named told AFP.
Her murder set off a wave of violence, arson and looting that has left 58 people dead and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage, including to dozens of election offices.
The loss of voter lists and the uncertain security situation delayed preparations for the vote, officials said.
Election commission spokesman Kanwar Dilshad said Tuesday that discussions had taken into account Moharram, one of the most sacred months in the Islamic calendar, which this year runs from around January 10 to February 8.
The United States, which counts Musharraf as a bulwark in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists, said a delay would be acceptable if the major political parties approved.
Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party, the country’s largest, said Tuesday that any postponement was “an excuse to buy time” for Musharraf’s allies “to come up with means to rig polls to turn the results in their favour.”
Every recent election in Pakistan, the world’s only nuclear-armed Islamic nation, has been marred by allegations of fraud.
Opposition parties have charged that the election commission has been stacked with Musharraf supporters, and that the interim government named to run the country in the run-up to the election is also pro-Musharraf.
The party of slain Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto will stand in general elections which have been delayed until February 18, a senior party official told AFP yesterday.
“We are taking part in the elections,” Nabil Gabol, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party central executive committee, said after a meeting here following the postponement of the vote from January 8.
A spokesman for former Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif said yesterday that the opposition leader’s party would take part in elections after they were delayed until February 18.
“Yes, we will certainly participate,” Sharif’s spokesman Zaeem Qadri told AFP after election officials announced that unrest caused by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto had forced the postponement of the January 8 vote.
However the chairman of Sharif’s party, Raja Zafar ul-Haq, said that the delay was “unfair and not reasonable”.
“We believe that it was the responsibility of the election commission to hold the election on time. The election commission has failed to fulfil its responsibility,” Haq told AFP.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s foreign office said yesterday that the government was open to international help in the investigation into the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
“The government is committed to a thorough and transparent investigation and is open to receiving assistance from outside,” foreign office spokesman Mohammed Sadiq told reporters.
He said visiting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner had offered help with the probe yesterday, while the United States and Britain had already told Pakistan that they could assist in the investigation.
“France is an important country of the European community. He did offer French help in the investigations. We assured we will contact them if such assistance is needed,” Sadiq said.
But he rejected calls from Asif Ali Zardari for a United Nations inquiry into her death along the lines of the world body’s probe of the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
“The situation in Pakistan is totally different to the circumstances around Hariri’s death,” said Sadiq.
President Pervez Musharraf has faced calls from Benazir;s party as well as some political figures in the United States, which counts the president as a crucial ally in the “war on terror,” for an international investigation.
Government officials have previously rejected an international inquiry.
The interior ministry on Saturday said that Pakistan did not require foreign help, saying that the international community “does not understand the environment” in the country.
However, France and the European Union have offered help, Kouchner, the first high-ranking foreign official to visit Pakistan since Benazir was killed at a campaign rally last week, said yesterday.
He met Musharraf to offer the help of France and the 27-nation EU bloc.
“Today we proposed to President Musharraf to provide French or European experts,” Kouchner said after meeting the president in Rawalpindi, the garrison city where Bhutto was slain in a gun and suicide attack last Thursday.
“Mr Musharraf responded that the idea was interesting,” he said.
The minister also delivered a letter from French President Nicolas Sarkozy which he said expressed his country’s solidarity with Pakistan in the wake of the “horrible crime.”
He said the letter also underlined Sarkozy’s “support for what must be democratic efforts in the continuation of the election process as well as the fight against terrorism and extremism.”
An AFP reporter who was present said Musharraf quickly read the letter and told Kouchner: “I totally agree with this.”
The minister met officials from Benazir’s party later in the day and placed flowers at the site where she was killed.
“We need certainly a sort of international cooperation with Pakistan in this inquiry,” Kouchner said as he prepared to leave the country.
March 14th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
i am very happy because the election did is very secssfull in pakistan and i give mubark to chodry M Afzal Gill for sucss in hlka noumber pp 273 Allah hafiz
March 18th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
FACTS ON THE GROUND IN PAKISTAN.Reference to the Islamic history and Pakistan’s independance period, I want to go a step further and will recomand to select/elect every Chief of Army staff as president after retirement and the present Army chief should be be given extra time for his oustanding services at national and international level and all other Corps. Commanders of the Army and COS of Airforce and Navy should be apponited Governors and Deputy Governors of the provinces and regions ( by creating regional governments in all four provinces, 2 in Punjab 1 in each province- these regions already exist based on language, culture and history , such as Saraiki, Potahari, Upper Sind-Sukkar, Dera Ismail Khan in NWFP and Gawadar- Balouch Area. And all additional bureaucrates who love to live in provincial capitals should be trasfered to these remote areas of the country. These new regions should invite and attrect the foreigner and Pakistani origin people to invest in the area to creat jobs and eliminate poverty.) This is the only way we can stop further intereption/ coup in Pakistan . After all armed forces personnel are wel diciplined and organized . And above all represent Pakistan’s divercified population. With this arrangement no one is loser except few feudals and industrialists, who reprent non of the masses in Pakistan. We already have a quota system applied for superior services since 30 years and had killed thousands of innocent talented young people, why not try this arrangement for the welfare of the country which will effect none but very few so called politicians who after all deal with generals behind the curtains.And it’s good to know that supporters of these politician are 500/600 Mafia heads who live in 125 districts in Pakistan and provide so called public leadership for national, provincial and local levels. All 8000/9000 candidates in recent elections were from the same mafia group who are the biggest law breakers and around 900 leading law breaker are elected as tne new law makers who will take care of them but none. They all involved in worst kind ofcrimes on this earth against humanity.WOULD THE EDITOR PUBLISH THIS LETTER in the larger interest of the nation. KHWAJA AFTAB ALI , the first and only post graduate of Intellectual Property Laws on scholarship from USA. Residing in Orlando, Florida.U.S.A. at 4418 St. Georges Court, Kissimmee, Fl.34746 Phone. 407-729-3983 & 407-397-1376 -
May 10th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
excuse me sir please send me the result of pf-2 peshawar-II and NA-I peshawar-I.