ISLAMABAD, 2 January 2007 — Pakistan’s Election Commission yesterday decided to postpone the Jan. 8 elections and fix a new date after consultations with the country’s political parties.
Briefing reporters after a three-hour meeting chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Farooq Qazi, the commission’s secretary, Kunwar Dilshad, said the elections had to be postponed because of damage to poll materials during the three days of violence following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on Thursday. He said election offices in the southern Sindh province, the stronghold of the murdered former prime minister, were the worst hit by the riots.
Benazir’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which can expect to reap a considerable sympathy vote after her murder, and the other main opposition party, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, want the elections to go ahead as scheduled.
“It is up to the people of Pakistan to choose their future, and the time is now,” Sharif and Benazir’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, now co-chairman of her party along with their 19-year old son, Bilawal, said in a joint statement.
“The Jan. 8 elections must proceed as scheduled. This will not only be a tribute to the memory of Benazir Bhutto, but even more important, a reaffirmation of the cause of democracy for which she died,” they said.
Zardari said a delay would serve no purpose. “Tomorrow, suppose they postpone elections for 10 days, 15 days or one month and there is another assassination, then what will happen?” he told Reuters Television. “What guarantee is there that once they postpone the elections the situation will be under control?”
Analysts expect the vote to be postponed to late February but say a delay could lead to violence.
The pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (Q) has said it favors a delay because of the security situation. Opponents say a delay would work to the advantage of the party.
In a fresh allegation, a PPP official charged that Benazir was slain hours before she was to go public with “proof” that Pakistani intelligence and electoral officials were planning to rig the elections. She was to do that at a news conference on Thursday night after giving material proof to visiting US lawmakers, said Sen. Latif Khosa. She was killed in the afternoon.
“Bhutto was scheduled to reveal a document containing proof of rigging plans by the Election Commission and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) the night she was assassinated,” Khosa said. “It was a 160-page document titled ‘Yet Another Stain on the Face of Democracy’, which Bhutto was to unveil at a press conference after meeting the two visiting US lawmakers,” he said. “But that was not possible because she was murdered.”
— Additional input from agencies
