Pakistan’s opposition parties demanded better security on Thursday as the nation prepared for a lengthy campaign ahead of February 18 elections, a week after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The country’s main political parties confirmed they would resume the race to restore democracy but said the government must ensure candidates are protected.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf called for help from British police in probing the murder of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto as he sought to dampen public anger on Thursday a week after her death. He said a Scotland Yard team would "immediately" come to help resolve doubts surrounding the circumstances of how she died.
Pakistan election officials were 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.
Pakistan’s election commission said the date for parliamentary elections would be announced on Wednesday, with a delay until February now in view following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The January 8 vote, the next step along the road to civilian-led democracy in Pakistan, was thrown into chaos with the killing of the opposition leader last week.
Benazir Bhutto had planned to brief visiting American politicians about an alleged poll-rigging plot orchestrated by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies on the day she was killed, senior officials of her party said on Monday. Bhutto had obtained details of an Islamabad safe house run by the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency from where it intended to manipulate the poll.
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/ 31 December 2007
Pakistan’s elections will be delayed by at least four weeks due to mass unrest after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, a Cabinet official said on Monday. Other government and election officials confirmed that the January 8 polls would be postponed. Bhutto’s party rejected any delay.
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/ 31 December 2007
Gold rallied to a seven-week high on Monday and close to a record high of on speculative buying driven by a weak United States dollar and tensions in Pakistan following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Gold has risen more than 30% this year — the biggest annual gain since 1979.
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/ 31 December 2007
Pakistani officials were to meet on Monday to decide the fate of scheduled January 8 elections, after Benazir Bhutto’s party announced it would contest the vote despite her assassination. The vote, seen as a key step in the nuclear-armed nation’s transition back to democracy after eight years of military rule, has been thrown into disarray by her slaying.
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/ 30 December 2007
The son of slain Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was chosen on Sunday to take the mantle of her party and immediately vowed to keep up what he called her struggle for democracy. At an emotional news conference where his father was named co-chair of the Pakistan People’s Party, 19-year-old Bilawal Bhutto said he was ready to lead.
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/ 30 December 2007
Pakistan’s political future hung in the balance on Sunday with Benazir Bhutto’s party deciding whether to pull out of planned elections amid an acrimonious dispute over how she was killed. Her husband and top party officials were also expected to name a successor to Bhutto as head of the country’s largest opposition party.
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/ 29 December 2007
Benazir Bhutto’s party challenged official versions of the opposition leader’s assassination and accused the government on Saturday of trying to cover up failures just days before planned elections. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda-linked militants denied being behind the killing of the 54-year-old former prime minister.
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/ 29 December 2007
Pakistan was on Saturday gripped by division and uncertainty following the burial of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto as her supporters angrily rejected a government explanation of her death. Bhutto died on Thursday shortly after a suicide attack targeting her vehicle at a campaign rally in the northern city of Rawalpindi.
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/ 28 December 2007
Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest next to her father in the family mausoleum on Friday after the opposition leader’s assassination plunged Pakistan into crisis and triggered violent protests across her native Sindh province. Thousands of mourners wept as Bhutto was carried from her ancestral home in Sindh to the mausoleum.
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/ 28 December 2007
The body of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was taken to her family village for burial on Friday, a day after her assassination plunged the nuclear-armed country into one of the worst crises in its 60-year history. Her killing after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi triggered a wave of violence.
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/ 27 December 2007
World leaders voiced outrage at the assassination on Thursday of Pakistan’s opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and expressed fears for the fate of the nuclear-armed state. United States President George Bush condemned the killing as a ”cowardly act”.
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/ 27 December 2007
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on Thursday as she left an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi, putting January 8 polls in doubt and sparking anger in her native Sindh province. State media and her party confirmed Bhutto’s death from a gun and bomb attack. ”She has been martyred,” said party official Rehman Malik.
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/ 27 December 2007
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, slain in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi on December 27, knew very well the risks she ran when she decided to wage a public campaign for the restoration of democracy. Hours after she returned home in October after eight years of self-imposed exile, a suicide bomber killed nearly 150 people in an attack targeting her motorcade.
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/ 23 December 2007
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said on Sunday some religious schools were turning children into killers. Speaking to about 25 000 supporters near her ancestral home in the southern town of Larkana, she also renewed accusations the government had done nothing to stop militant violence.
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/ 20 December 2007
A suicide bomber killed at least 42 people in a mosque in north-west Pakistan on Friday where a former interior minister was offering Muslim Eid festival prayers with worshippers, the government said. The former minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, survived unhurt but at least 80 people were wounded in the blast.
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/ 17 December 2007
A suicide bomber killed 10 Pakistani military recruits in the north-western town of Kohat on Monday, the military said, the first major attack since emergency rule was lifted two days ago. The bombing was near an army-run school where Islamist militants in recent months have made repeated attacks.
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/ 17 December 2007
A manhunt began in Pakistan on Sunday night after a handcuffed British terrorist suspect escaped outside an extradition hearing at an Islamabad court. The disappearance of Rashid Rauf, accused of involvement in an alleged plot to blow up a dozen transatlantic airliners, placed fresh pressure on the strained relations between the United Kingdom and Pakistan
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/ 8 December 2007
Three supporters of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto were killed on Saturday when gunmen attacked her party’s office in a town in south-western Pakistan, police said, in the first reported deaths in the current election campaign. Police had no immediate information about the motive for the attack.
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/ 7 December 2007
Pakistan’s two main opposition leaders have failed to overcome key differences preventing them forging a united front ahead of general elections in January, party officials said on Friday. Former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif will now have to meet again next week to try to hammer out an agreement, their parties said.
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/ 3 December 2007
Pakistani authorities on Monday banned former premier Nawaz Sharif from standing in next month’s general election, further damaging the credibility of a vote that the opposition may yet boycott. The ruling came as Sharif prepared to hold crunch talks with fellow opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
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/ 1 December 2007
The man who devised the Bush administration’s Iraq troop surge has urged the United States to consider sending elite troops to Pakistan to seize its nuclear weapons if the country descends into chaos. In a series of scenarios drawn up for Pakistan, Frederick Kagan has called for the White House to consider various options for an unstable Pakistan.
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/ 29 November 2007
President Pervez Musharraf promised on Thursday to lift Pakistan’s state of emergency on December 16, making a long-awaited gesture of reconciliation hours after being sworn in as a civilian leader. Addressing the nation on television, Musharraf said he would also restore the Constitution, which was suspended when he declared emergency rule on November 3.
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/ 28 November 2007
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf stepped down as army chief on Wednesday and will be sworn in as a civilian leader for a second five-year term on Thursday. Musharraf passed the baton of command to his hand-picked successor, General Ashfaq Kayani, at a ceremony at army headquarters in Rawalpindi.
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/ 27 November 2007
Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf said farewell to military colleagues on Tuesday as he prepared to become a civilian president ahead of January’s general election. Musharraf visited Joint Staff headquarters in Rawalpindi a day before he steps down as army chief to fulfil one of the long-held demands of his political rivals and Western allies.
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/ 26 November 2007
Pakistan’s ex-premier Nawaz Sharif plotted tactics with key aides on Monday as he sought to capitalise on his hero’s welcome home from exile to spur opposition to President Pervez Musharraf. Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a coup in 1999, was due to file his nomination papers for general elections, despite warning his party may end up boycotting the January 8 vote.
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/ 24 November 2007
Twin suicide blasts killed at least 15 people on Saturday in the Pakistani garrison town of Rawalpindi adjoining Islamabad, the military said, including 13 aboard a Defence Ministry bus. A suicide bomber rammed a car into the back of the bus outside an intelligence-service office.
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/ 23 November 2007
The 53-nation Commonwealth suspended Pakistan’s membership on Thursday, after President Pervez Musharraf failed to meet a deadline to lift emergency rule and resign as army chief. The Commonwealth had given Musharraf until Thursday to lift the state of emergency he imposed on November 3.
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/ 22 November 2007
Pakistan on Thursday faced suspension from the Commonwealth for the second time in eight years after failing to meet a deadline for lifting emergency rule. In a conversation on Wednesday, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made a final plea to President Pervez Musharraf to lift the state of emergency.