ISLAMABAD, 11 October 2007 — Pakistan will hold general elections in early January next year, the prime minister announced yesterday, in the next crucial step in the country’s return to democracy.
Shaukat Aziz said the elections would be staged before Jan. 15 and after the current session of the national Parliament finishes.
“Elections would be held in the first part of January,” Aziz told reporters during an iftar dinner at his residence.
“The national Parliament and provincial assemblies will complete their terms on Nov. 15 and elections will be held 60 days after that.”
The announcement comes as Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf swept to a landslide victory in Saturday’s controversial election — held by the national Parliament and provincial assemblies — which most of the opposition boycotted.
In another development, the government of a troubled Pakistani province was dissolved yesterday amid differences between rival Islamist groups that could strengthen President Musharraf’s hold on power.
Gov. Ali Mohammed Jan Aurakzai dissolved the provincial assembly of North West Frontier Province and appointed Shamsul Mulk, a former provincial minister, as caretaker chief minister of the province.
Aziz insisted yesterday that January’s election would be the next stage of the democratic process.
“With the presidential election held successfully, the first phase of the election process has been completed and now general elections will be held in a transparent and free manner,” he said at the dinner.
In another development, the government of a troubled Pakistani province was dissolved yesterday amid differences between rival Islamist groups that could strengthen President Musharraf’s hold on power.
Gov. Ali Mohammed Jan Aurakzai dissolved the provincial assembly of North West Frontier Province and appointed Shamsul Mulk, a former provincial minister, as caretaker chief minister of the province.
The province has been governed since 2002 by the Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal, an alliance of religious parties opposed to Musharraf’s close alliance with the United States. The MMA initiated moves to dissolve the assembly earlier this month in order to undermine the legitimacy of Pakistan’s Oct. 6 presidential election.
— With input from agencies
However, maneuvering among the MMA’s leaders meant the dissolution has taken place too late to affect the vote among federal and provincial lawmakers.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad, leader of the rival Jamaat-e-Islami, yesterday urged the alliance to hold together and fight the election from a common platform.
“It will be necessary that the MMA should be kept intact ... despite the differences,” Ahmad said on Dawn News television.
But some commentators are predicting its demise.
“It is clear that the MMA is on the chopping block,” the Daily Times newspaper wrote in an editorial on Wednesday, though said it was too early to make out any “secret compact” between Rahman and Musharraf.
Despite their strong anti-US rhetoric, the religious parties have supported Musharraf.
Most notably, the MMA voted for a constitutional amendment in 2003 that legalized aspects of Musharraf’s 1999 coup and allowed him to continue as army chief as well as president.
Meanwhile, Pakistani artillery bombarded Taleban and Al-Qaeda positions yesterday as villagers buried relatives killed by an airstrike during heavy fighting in a tribal area near the Afghan border.
There were no official estimates of the casualties from Tuesday’s airstrike, though residents and intelligence officials in the area reckoned up to 50 people had been killed, some of them shopping at a village bazaar.
If true, it would take the tally to about 250 since the fighting escalated on Saturday night after an attack on an army convoy near Mir Ali, a town where Al-Qaeda tracks have been often found before.
The only people left in Hormuz, one of a cluster of villages near Mir Ali, were holding funerals. Other families fled the conflict zone in the North Waziristan tribal region.
“One of my aunts and her son were killed,” said Akhtar Azam, whose house in Hormuz village was hit.
The thump of artillery shells could be heard in the main town of Miranshah, coming from the vicinity of Mir Ali, 25 km (nearly 16 miles) away. Scores of rounds were fired in the pre-dawn barrage, residents said.
Militants also fired a couple of rockets onto the military runway near Miranshah’s fort, but there were no casualties reported.
The last bout of intense fighting in North Waziristan coincided with a visit by US President George W. Bush to Islamabad in March 2006.
