ISLAMABAD: The party backing Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has suspended election campaigning for the January 8 parliamentary vote, a spokesman told AFP on Sunday.

"We have suspended our campaign because of the prevailing situation," said Tariq Azim, the country's former deputy information minister, just days after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

"We do not have a climate in which we can canvass voters," Azim said, adding that a delay in the vote – which Musharraf has vowed would be a key step in completing Pakistan's return to civilian rule – would be "realistic".

He said Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) had declared a 40-day period of mourning after she was slain in a gun and suicide attack at a campaign rally on Thursday, which has thrown the country into violence and turmoil.

"Perhaps it will be asking too much of the PPP if they are to go to voters and contest the elections next week," Azim said.

Azim's Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) was the country's ruling party until Musharraf dissolved parliament in November and appointed a caretaker government, which was to run the nation until the January 8 vote.

Both the PPP and other opposition parties rejected the caretaker set-up as an extension of the PML-Q, deeming it partisan and demanding that Musharraf instead announce a national consensus government to conduct the elections.

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Azim said it would be difficult for the vote to go ahead on schedule.

"Keeping everything in mind, a delay of 10 to 12 weeks is realistic," he said.


- AFP/so

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