ISLAMABAD — Forty people were killed and more than 90 wounded in a suicide car bomb blast outside the election office of Riyaz Hussain Shah, a Pakistan People’s Party candidate, in the tribal district of Parachinar near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan yesterday, the last day of campaigning for elections.
Talking to the media later, Shah said that though he was present in the office at the time of the blast, he escaped unhurt.
Separately, police in the south of the country said they had foiled another attack planned for polling day tomorrow.
Campaigning for the elections to a new parliament and provincial assemblies has been overshadowed by security fears, especially since former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack on Dec. 27. Opposition politicians have also complained of vote rigging.
The poll could spell trouble for President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally who stepped down as army chief in November, if voters elect a Parliament hostile to him. Voting was postponed from Jan. 8 after Benazir’s assassination, which raised fears about the nuclear-armed country’s stability.
In another suspected suicide attack in the northwest, two civilians were killed and four soldiers wounded in the Swat valley, a military official said. The northwest has been hit by a surge of violence since July, but attacks have taken place in major cities across Pakistan and there are fears of more.
Police in the southern city of Hyderabad said they had arrested three suspected suicide bombers believed to be planning attacks on polling stations and seized 10 kg of explosives and a suicide bomb jacket. The violence in what has been one of the country’s bloodiest election campaigns has unnerved politicians and voters, and turnout tomorrow could be low despite the deployment of more than 80,000 troops. The United States wanted to see an election in which all the parties can compete fairly, a US spokesman said. “Violence is not the answer, and we know this latest attack will not stop the people of Pakistan from voting,” said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
Opposition parties say Musharraf’s allies have been engaged in widespread pre-poll rigging. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Benazir’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who is leading her party into the vote, met in Lahore yesterday and warned of trouble if they were robbed of victory. “If the opposition is deprived of its rightful place in the elections, I think that ... will throw the country into a very chaotic situation,” Sharif told a news conference.
Zardari told reporters he expected to win but he doubted the vote would be fair. “If they want to rig the election, that we will not take sitting down,” he said.
— With input from agencies
