Islamabad/Sydney: Pakistan’s election commission will announce on Tuesday whether the 8 January general elections should be delayed in response to rioting that erupted after last week’s assassination of main opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
Polls hurdle: People gather on Monday near shops burnt by supporters of Pakistan’s slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto after her death in her hometown of Larkana in Pakistan.
“We have asked the four provinces to send us information about how much damage was done to offices and equipment in the rioting,” Kanwar Dilshad, secretary of the commission said in Islamabad on Monday. “After we review that information, we will decide whether to delay elections.”
The commission was supposed to make its announcement on Monday following a decision by the cabinet of President Pervez Musharraf. On Sunday, Nisar A. Memon, the interim information minister, had said law and order has been restored in almost all areas, according to the official Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).
Interior minister Hamid Nawaz will brief the cabinet on Monday on efforts to end the unrest, he had said.
Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party has taken a “wise decision of joining the election process,” Memon said after PPP named her son Bilawal Zardari as its new leader and said it will participate. After PPP’s announcement, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif reversed his decision to boycott the ballot.
Bhutto’s assassination on 27 December sparked riots in Pakistan’s main cities, resulting in the death of as many as 38 people as her supporters took to the streets, burning offices, shops and cars. The election is now a “war against the people in the government of Pakistan,” Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto’s husband, had said on Sunday.
Election arrangements have been “adversely affected” by the riots, the election commission said two days ago.
AFP reported that the election would likely be delayed a few weeks, quoting an unnamed senior government official. The delay was a result of unrest that destroyed more than 40 election offices, the agency said.
Caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro has begun talks with political parties on whether the elections will go ahead, Memon said, according to APP.
Any decision on the ballot will be taken after mutual consultation, he said. The cabinet will study the recommendation of the election commission before deciding about holding the vote, Memon added.
Bhutto, who led PPP since her father, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was executed in 1979, named Zardari as her successor in her will, party vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim had said on Sunday. Zardari, who will be co-chairman of PPP, nominated his son Bilawal, 19, to lead the party, he had said.
“I stand committed to the principle of federation,” Bilawal, a student at Oxford University, said in a televised news conference from Bhutto’s hometown of Naudero in southern Pakistan on Sunday. “My mother always said, ‘democracy is the best revenge.”’
Bilawal said he will return to Pakistan to run the party after he completes his education. Until then, his father will lead PPP. Zardari and Bilawal won’t be standing in the election as they didn’t register as candidates. Fahim will be the party’s candidate for prime minister, Zardari said.
The choice of Bilawal “is what Benazir wanted,” said Hussain Haqqani, a Pakistani scholar at Boston University who retains ties to the PPP leadership. His selection reflects the durable appeal of the Bhutto name, “something that is part of the sentimental dimension of politics in South Asia,” he added.
The US is encouraging all political parties to participate in the elections, state department spokesman Tom Casey had said on 28 December..
President George W. Bush’s administration, which supplies Pakistan with financial and military aid to fight extremists, has been pressing Musharraf to take more steps toward democracy. The US also has been reaching out to Sharif and other opposition leaders.
Bhutto’s party rejected government claims that a Taliban commander linked to Al Qaeda was behind the assassination and has demanded an independent investigation. Zardari said his sister, a doctor, bathed Bhutto’s body before burial and saw a bullet wound.
That is contrary to the government’s report that Bhutto wasn’t hit by any bullets or shrapnel and was killed when she hit her head on a lever for the sunroof of her vehicle following a suicide blast. No autopsy was performed.
Interior ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema had said on 28 December that Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban commander linked to Al Qaeda, is suspected of plotting the attack. Mehsud denied the claim, AFP reported, citing a spokesman.
Jim Rupert in Islamabad contributed to this story.