Pakistan awaits election decision

By Robert Birsel

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani electoral officials hold an emergency meeting on Monday to decide whether to go ahead with a January poll in a nation plunged into crisis by the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

Bhutto's party chose her son and husband on Sunday to succeed her, but doubts grew about whether the parliamentary election aiming to shift Pakistan from military to civilian rule would take place as planned on Jan. 8.

Her 19-year-old son Bilawal, introduced at a news conference in Naudero in the south as Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, said the party's long struggle for democracy would avenge her death. "My mother always said, democracy is the best revenge," he said.

Bhutto's killing in a suicide attack on Thursday stoked bloodshed across the country and rage against President Pervez Musharraf, casting doubts on nuclear-armed Pakistan's stability and its transition to civilian rule.

Pakistan's stocks were expected to tumble on Monday when trading resumes after three days of mourning. The political turmoil and violence risk frightening off foreign investors and damaging the economy.

A former ruling party official said the election in Pakistan, a key U.S. ally against terrorism, was likely to be delayed for up to two months but Bhutto's party vowed to take part and another opposition party said it probably would too.

The Election Commission, which meets on Monday, said on Saturday its offices in 11 districts in Sindh province in the south of the country had been burned and voting material including electoral rolls destroyed.

Security fears in two northwestern regions also raised doubts about voting there, it said.

U.S. President George W. Bush urged Pakistanis to hold the vote but White House officials said it was up to Pakistan's authorities to determine the timing.

The U.S. State Department went further. "If there is a delay in the elections, we want to make sure a new date is named. We don't want to see an indefinite delay," said a State Department spokesman, declining to be further identified.

A promising investment story less than a year ago, Pakistan is now gripped by fears of capital flight if security worsens. The death toll from violence since Bhutto's killing has reached 47.

CALM URGED

"Despite this dangerous situation, we will go for elections, according to her will and thinking," said Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, made co-chairman of the PPP party with their son Bilawal from the Bhutto home in Naudero, southern Pakistan.

However, an official of the former ruling party backing Musharraf said: "It seems more than likely that elections will be delayed."

The party of Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, who like Bhutto is a former prime minister, said it was likely to abandon plans to boycott the poll after the PPP decision.