Election Commission to announce election date today
Election officials were on Wednesday poised to announce the date of crucial polls, thrown into chaos in the wake of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
A few hours later President Pervez Musharraf is to address the nation for the first time since her slaying at a campaign rally last week, which set off days of unrest and calls for an international investigation.
Despite calls from the new leadership of her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and another former premier Nawaz Sharif for the vote to go ahead on January 8 as planned, the election commission said to do so would be “impossible”.
A senior election official told AFP that because of the widespread unrest, the parliamentary polls will now take place in February with the exact date to be confirmed on Wednesday after talks with the parties.
Both the PPP and the party headed by Sharif, like Benazir, want early polls but seem set to be disappointed.
“It looks impossible to hold elections on January 8,” election commission spokesman Kanwar Dilshad said.
The loss of voter lists and the shaky security situation has also delayed preparations for the election.
Dilshad said discussions on a new date had taken into account Moharram, one of the most sacred months in the Islamic calendar, which in Pakistan runs from around January 10 to February 8 this year.
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