Pakistan poll postponed
Election commission says vote will be held on February 18, instead of January 8.
Farooq also said that election offices in 11 districts of Sindh, Bhutto’s ancestral home, were burned down.
Ballot boxes, voter screens, voter lists and other election materials were said to have been destroyed.
‘Unfair delay’
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Opposition parties including the PPP had earlier demanded that the elections not be deferred.
Farzana Raja, a spokeswoman for the PPP, said: “Whatever reasons they give, [they are] lame-duck excuses, because [while] electoral papers and lists were burnt in the districts, they have those lists in the central office.”
“We reject their baseless excuses. We are ready to fight the election.”
However, Raja Zafar ul-Haq, the chairman of Sharif’s party, said that the delay was “unfair and not reasonable”.
Scotland Yard probe
In a speech to the nation, Pervez Musharraf, the president, said the postponement of general elections was “unavoidable”.
He said: “The postponement was unavoidable and the decision by the election commission is correct.”
He also said that a Scotland Yard forensic team from Britain would come “immediately” to Pakistan to help investigate the death of Bhutto.
Sohail Rahman, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Pakistan, said that questions remain in terms of the scope of the investigation.
He said: “The size of the team, and what evidence will be available to them, remains to be seen.”
Rahman said a UN probe into Bhutto’s killing, as demanded by Asif Zardari, Bhutto’s husband, is unlikely since the Pakistani government has not asked for it.