Leading Parties Declare Intent to Keep Poll Date

Pakistan's three main parties last night agreed to contest elections on schedule next Tuesday, despite the crisis triggered by Benazir Bhutto's assassination last week.

A final decision on the election date, however, is expected to be made today in Islamabad by the country's election commission, which will have to take into account the disruption of several days of rioting following the assassination.

Some political observers suggested the professed enthusiasm for a contest by the principal political leaders was motivated more by fear of being seen to dodge a fight than by any sense of organizational readiness.

Bhutto's Pakistan People's party (PPP) declared it was opposed to any delay at a party conference at Bhutto's home town of Naudero. The declaration was made despite the fact that the party had lost its charismatic leader only three days earlier and had replaced her with her 19-year-old son, Bilawal, who has no political experience, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who is fighting corruption allegations in Pakistan and abroad.

The PPP announcement was followed swiftly by a change of mind by Nawaz Sharif; the former prime minister abandoned his vow that his party, a faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), would boycott the parliamentary election.

That was followed by a U-turn from President Pervez Musharraf's ruling faction, PML-Q. Earlier in the day, Tariq Azim, the party spokesman, had said the vote could be put off for months. Last night, however, Azim congratulated the PPP on its decision. "We welcome it, and we are also ready for the contest on January 8," he said.

Earlier, Gordon Brown spoke to Musharraf and made clear that while the UK was not opposed to a delay in the election timetable outright, the postponement should be short. A Downing Street spokesman said: "The prime minister underlined the need to push ahead with the democratic process and to avoid any significant delays to the electoral timetable."

The critical decision that triggered the abrupt change of mood in Pakistan was made by the PPP, which saw an opportunity of channelling popular sympathy in the wake of the assassination.

Party stalwarts said they expected to win marginal seats they might normally have lost. "The ruling party is looking for an excuse to postpone because the wave across the country is in favor of the PPP. We don't want Benazir's sacrifice to be wasted," said Dr Mirza Ikhtiar Baig, a candidate from Karachi.

But the PPP says it still expects the poll to be rigged. If that happens, party officials warn, they will launch a nationwide campaign movement. "If there is rigging, there will be bloodshed. We are mentally prepared for that," Baig said.

Despite the gung-ho pronouncements, officials on all sides are well aware that logistical problems could still force a delay. Rioters have wrecked election offices in nine districts, destroying voter rolls and ballot boxes and hampering the printing of ballot slips and the training of poll workers. Those factors will be weighed at today's election commission meeting. One senior PPP official yesterday admitted it was likely the poll would be delayed by up to eight weeks.

Talat Masood, a former army lieutenant general and now a political analyst, said the PPP had sought a quick fix, keeping the party together with the "glue" of the Bhutto family name, and hoping to benefit from an immediate sympathy vote.

He argued that the strategy represented a missed chance on the part of the PPP leadership to reinvent the party and remould Pakistan's politics. "They still haven't come to the idea of a party that is institutionally-based, issue-based and ideologically-based rather than one built around a family," Masood said. "This was a great opportunity. I didn't expect them to take it, but I was hoping against hope. Otherwise, this tragedy just turns to farce."