PAKISTAN:The situation in Pakistan remains volatile and violence may erupt in the run-up to elections next month, the head of a European Union observer mission said yesterday, writes Mary Fitzgerald, Foreign Affairs Correspondent in Karachi.
The country's election commission postponed the general election, which had been scheduled for next week, because of the destruction caused by widespread rioting and looting that followed the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto last week.
Nearly 50 people were killed after news spread that the former prime minister had died following a gun and suicide-bomb attack during an election rally her party held in Rawalpindi. Most of the deaths occurred during disturbances in Bhutto's home province of Sindh. More than 10 election centres were destroyed.
The election was originally scheduled for January 8th but will now be held on February 18th.
"The security situation is, of course, volatile," the head of the EU observer mission, Michael Gahler, told reporters yesterday. "We cannot exclude that violence may erupt for whatever reason . . . but at the moment it's my impression that the level of unrest has definitely calmed down," he said.
The two main opposition parties, including Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), had insisted that the vote go ahead as planned, suspecting authorities wanted to delay the election in order to neutralise the huge sympathy vote the PPP is expected to reap at the polls. Many observers feared the delay would lead to violent protests by PPP and other opposition supporters. Those fears have not been realised. "This postponement has not caused any further unrest so we think that parties and people are now duly preparing for the election," Mr Gahler said.
A team of EU election specialists arrived in Pakistan last month and about 100 observers are expected to monitor the polls on February 18th.
Mr Gahler said his team would travel to most of the country except the tribal borderlands with Afghanistan, a lawless region which is home to militants linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. It would release a preliminary assessment within 72 hours of the polls closing.
Despite President Pervez Musharraf's insistence on "free, fair, transparent and peaceful" elections, opposition leaders have accused authorities of planning to rig the vote.
A senior member of the PPP has claimed that on the night she was assassinated, Bhutto was poised to reveal proof that Pakistan's intelligence agency was plotting to rig the vote.
Mr Musharraf has dismissed the allegations as "baseless".
US president George W Bush has reiterated his support for Pakistan's president, saying he had proved a strong ally in fighting terrorism, and had kept his promise to step down as army chief and set a date for elections.
"I think that whoever wins the election is somebody with whom President Musharraf should work, and of course we will be a strong ally of Pakistan," said Mr Bush.
Pakistan's government yesterday criticised a Brussels-based research institute for interfering in the country's "democratic process" after it published a report saying Mr Musharraf should resign to prevent further instability.
The International Crisis Group report was tantamount to propagating "seditious views against the laws of the country", a government spokesman said.
Meanwhile, a team of British police has arrived in Pakistan to assist in the investigation into Bhutto's murder. President Musharraf told reporters on Thursday that he had asked British police to help in order to stem suspicions that there may have been official complicity.
He also said he was not fully satisfied with the investigation, referring in particular to the hosing down of the blast site soon after the attack. But he denied the scene was cleaned in an attempt to destroy crucial evidence.
Bhutto's party said it would not co-operate with the British investigators. Instead, the PPP is demanding a UN investigation similar to that into the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
"We want nothing less than a full international inquiry," Farhatullah Babar, a senior PPP member, told The Irish Times. "The more the government rejects this idea, the more it rouses suspicions and doubts."