Europe will add dozens to its team of poll observers

Brussels/Islamabad: The European Commission will expand its team of election observers in Pakistan, adding several dozen people over the next few weeks, an official said yesterday.

A core team of 11 EU experts based in Islamabad will - if the security situation permits - be joined by 50 observers who will travel around the country, EU spokeswoman Christiane Hohmann said. More short-term observers could arrive immediately before the elections, scheduled for February 18, she said.

The team will assess the election campaign, the ballot, the performance of the judiciary and the overall climate in which the crucial parliamentary elections will take place before delivering its verdict on the fairness of the vote.

The government decided to postpone the polls to February 18, six weeks after they were initially scheduled, because of unrest following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. Her death in a suicide bomb and gun attack plunged already volatile Pakistan into deep crisis.

The head of the European observer mission, meanwhile, said yesterday that violence may erupt in the run-up to February elections but a six-week postponement of the polls has not fuelled unrest.

Volatile

Nearly 50 people were killed, most of them in Bhutto's home province of Sindh, after she was killed while leaving a rally in the city of Rawalpindi.

"The security situation is, of course, well, volatile," the head of the EU observer mission, Michael Gahler, told a news conference.

"We cannot exclude that violence may erupt for whatever reason ... but at the moment it's my impression that the level of unrest has definitely calmed down," he said.