Islamabad - The Pakistani government will postpone forthcoming elections by more than a month due to rioting following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto that destroyed election offices and threw security in doubt, officials said Tuesday. The delay will mean the continuation of nuclear-armed Pakistan's year-long political crisis, which grew more severe following the former prime minister and political icon's slaying in a gun-suicide bomb attack last Thursday, analysts said.
The Election Commission of Pakistan will announce a new poll date on Wednesday after consulting with the country's main political parties, according to an election official. Elections had been scheduled for January 8.
"Given the current circumstances, holding elections on schedule seems impossible," spokesman Kanwar Dilshad said.
At least half the election offices in the southern province of Sindh, Bhutto's political stronghold, were razed in three days of rioting following her assassination.
An election official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the commission had received assessment reports from all four provincial governments and in the light of these it has become clear that "given the current security situation elections could not be held on January 8 as scheduled."
The commission was considering holding the elections in the second half of next month, with February 22 mentioned as a potential date, the election official said.
"Hopefully, we will complete this consultation this evening," Dilshad said following the meeting. "We will inform the political parties that the election commission offices in 13 districts (of Sindh) have been set on fire, which makes it very difficult for us to hold elections on schedule."
But the country's two main opposition parties - Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz - have warned against any delay in elections.
"If Iraq and Afghanistan can hold elections despite wars, if African nations facing civil wars can hold elections, why cannot Pakistan?" Bhutto's widower and new co-chairman of her party, Asif Ali Zardari, said in a television interview.
Zardari and his colleagues said they believe the party could sweep the elections if they were held on schedule, riding a wave of sympathy for Bhutto and massive dissatisfaction with embattled President Pervez Musharraf and his political backers, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).
Party officials have publicly accused rogue elements within Musharraf's government of assassinating Bhutto, who was drawing huge crowds after returning from self-exile to campaign for an unprecedented third term as prime minister.
Ayaz Amir, a Pakistani political analyst, said any delay would not likely benefit Musharraf in regaining popular support. He said scepticism ran deep about government claims that Bhutto was killed on the orders of a Taliban commander linked to al-Qaeda.
"This means two more months of an uncertain period with a weak government in charge of the country's affairs," he said. "It's more dangerous because it opens a fresh period of uncertainty."
The Bush administration, Musharraf's key foreign patron, had been pushing for elections to be held on time as part of its strategy to see the return of a popular civilian government following more than eight years of military rule under Musharraf, who recently retired as chief of the army.
But US officials in recent days have indicated that they would not object to a slight delay. The Bush administration is increasingly alarmed at growing Islamic militancy along Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaeda militants have regrouped and launched more than 200 suicide attacks in both countries in 2007.
In the capital Islamabad, however, residents were more concerned about Bhutto's death and the expected election delay.
"When Benazir Bhutto's heirs have no objection to holding elections on schedule, then why is the government trying to postpone them?" asked Mushtaq Ahmad, 20, who runs a small flower stand in Islamabad's high market area.
"I think it's the (PML-Q) that does not want to go to the polls because they believe they will be swept away in the storm of hate for them we are seeing among the public."
