Pakistan polls must be held as planned

Postponing or cancelling them will play into the hands of those who killed Bhutto

The cowardly assassination of Benazir Bhutto has shattered the political scene in Pakistan. The elections, in which the murdered leader was very keen to take part, are now in doubt. But they shouldn't be.

The repeated bombings and shootings in election rallies, including the one that tragically took the life of the leader of Pakistan's largest political party, may make the government and its opponent fearful of more violence as we approach the January 8 polls.

But this would just play into the hands of those who killed Bhutto.

She knew she would be killed. She knew she was returning to her death when she left Dubai in October to challenge the government of President Pervez Musharraf. But the fear of death didn't stop her from going back and touring the country to rally support for her party.

The attack on her convoy hours after she arrived home on October 18 also failed to deter the strong willed Bhutto. She knew she could not afford to stay home as she had been told by the religious extremists who vowed to kill her. "No Muslim would dare to kill a woman," she recently mused in an interview with Gulf News.

But they did. And their aim is to sabotage any plan to bring back any form of democracy to Pakistan.

Therefore, they should not succeed. They may have dared and succeeded in killing a woman - who was a pioneering leader in the Muslim world - but they must fail in killing the hope of reform-minded people, like her, of having a truly elected government.

The elections must go on. The government and the political parties, including Bhutto's, owe it to her to stick to the scheduled date of the polls. And the government owes it to the people to provide sufficient security to other politicians, who want to keep hope alive.