Pakistan vote delay expected

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN —  With the party of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto pushing for elections to be held on schedule next week, President Pervez Musharraf’s government appeared poised Monday to postpone the vote well into February.

Pakistan’s Election Commission, which is made up of Musharraf supporters, was to have announced today that the vote would be delayed. But the decision was so contentious that the announcement was put off until Wednesday. A postponement of the vote could prompt renewed violence by supporters of opposition parties.

Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, mourning its slain leader, said Sunday that it wanted the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections to go ahead on schedule. Analysts said the party would be positioned to capitalize on a sympathy vote in the wake of Bhutto’s assassination Thursday.

Her party is the largest political grouping in Pakistan. A mixed voting result had been expected, but public anger over Bhutto’s death could pose a serious new challenge to Musharraf’s ruling party, analysts say.

Sources close to the Election Commission said Monday that the vote probably would shift to the third week of February.

As Musharraf and the opposition quarreled over how best to proceed with the election, new controversy raged over the government’s account of events surrounding the assassination.

The former prime minister’s party contends that Bhutto, 54, was shot just before a suicide blast that rocked the convoy as she left a rally, and that the government is trying to cover up the shooting. The government says she died of a fractured skull from striking her head on the lever of the sunroof as she was thrown by the force of the explosion.

New video obtained by a British news channel appears to support the contention that Bhutto was shot as she waved from the sunroof of her car. The video shows a man firing a gun at close range at Bhutto, whose hair and head scarf then fly upward.

The doctors at Rawalpindi General Hospital who attended to Bhutto have been warned by the government against discussing their findings about the cause of her death, said Athar Minhallah, a prominent opposition lawyer who serves on the hospital’s board.

Initially, at least one of the doctors had publicly described the fatal injury as appearing to have been a bullet wound.

On the instructions of Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, there was no formal autopsy, which he said would have been a desecration. The government has said the family can exhume her body and have a postmortem conducted if it wishes, but her supporters have ruled that out.

Leaders of Bhutto’s party have demanded an international investigation. The government at first said flatly it would accept no outside help, but has since appeared to soften that refusal.

In Crawford, Texas, where President Bush was spending New Year’s Eve, Deputy White House Press Secretary Scott Stanzel said it was up to the Pakistani people to decide whether they wanted the United States to assist in the investigation.

He said the United States has offered assistance, but aid has not been requested.

“I think it’s in the interests of the people of Pakistan that there be a full investigation,” Stanzel said.

Nawaz Sharif, now the principal opposition figure, demanded Monday that Musharraf step down and be replaced by a national unity government. At a news conference in the eastern city of Lahore, Sharif called the president a “one-man calamity.”

“The United States should see that Musharraf has not limited or curbed terrorism,” said Sharif, a former prime minister who was deposed by Musharraf in a 1999 coup. “In fact, terrorism is now stronger than ever before, with more sinister aspects.”

Rioting swept the country, particularly Bhutto’s home province of Sindh, after her slaying, and government officials had hinted that might be reason enough to postpone the polling. But the violence had largely subsided by Sunday.

Many Pakistanis believe that the government, at the very least, bears the responsibility for failing to provide Bhutto with adequate security.

Musharraf aides have said she acted recklessly in placing herself unprotected among large crowds.

Although Musharraf’s opponents are eager to hold the vote on schedule, some international observers say the unrest has made it difficult for them to adequately prepare for the observation mission. A spokesman for the European-led observer mission, Mathias Eick, told the Associated Press that the mission could not follow its “standard methods if the date stays Jan. 8.”

Bhutto’s party on Sunday anointed her 19-year-old son, Bilawal Zardari, as its ceremonial leader, and said her husband would be responsible for running its day-to-day affairs.

laura.king@latimes.com

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Crawford contributed to this report.