Islamabad - The Election Commission of Pakistan was due Wednesday to name a new date for parliamentary elections, which had been scheduled for next week but were being postponed after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Election officials said it was nearly "impossible" to hold the polls on time given that more than a dozen election offices in the southern province of Sindh, former prime minister Bhutto's political stronghold, were razed by rioters who destroyed electoral rolls, ballot papers, voting booths and other materials needed to open polling stations.
The country's main opposition parties, Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, have demanded that the polls be held as scheduled.
