ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari voted by post in Pakistan’s general election, spokesman Farhatullah Babar confirmed yesterday. The Taliban have threatened Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party and its secular coalition partners, which the party says dramatically curtailed its ability to campaign in public. Zardari’s wife and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a gun and suicide attack in 2007 before the last election and her successor as PPP chairman, their son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, is too young to run. Babar said Bilawal had been denied permission for a postal ballot. Zardari’s daughters Aseefa and Bakhtawar also cast their votes by post, he said. The family’s whereabouts has not been announced.
Monitors upset over security
ISLAMABAD: Gender Concerns International (GCI) representatives, who have come to Pakistan to monitor the election, were dissatisfied with the government’s security measures. “No authority has given us any assurances about security. Law enforcement agencies have not contacted us to discuss security for our volunteers. We have decided not to cover Baluchistan, However, I have been considering travelling to Quetta alone, but a final decision will be made on May 11 (today),” Director GCI and head of Gender Election Monitoring Mission Sabra Bano said, yesterday. Bano, from Holland, said although local collaborators had suggested that even local volunteers of GCI should not be sent to sensitive polling stations all over the country, particularly, in Baluchistan.
2,000 scribes can’t vote
ISLAMABAD: Over 2,000 journalists working in Islamabad and its adjacent garrison city of Rawalpindi will not be able to cast their ballots in their ancestral areas due to their work on election day. Some have called upon the Election Commission of Pakistan to devise a swift strategy to facilitate them to cast their ballot in their respective constituencies today. A large number of journalists have been assigned election duties by their organisations in the federal capital and neighbuoring Rawalpindi for providing prompt information to the general public.
Former general held by Interpol
ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) yesterday announced that a former army general allegedly involved in corrupt practices while holding key offices in the late 1980s had been detained in Bosnia with the help of Interpol. Retired Lt Gen Zahid Ali Akbar, a former chairman of Wapda, was detained on charge of making Rs267m assets beyond his known sources of income. According to NAB spokesman Ramzan Sajid, the detention was made possible with the cooperation of international agencies and Bosnia.
Rebels kidnap 11 deminers
Kabul: At least 11 deminers were kidnapped by gunmen in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, officials said. The deminers reportedly worked for MDS demining and were kidnapped in Achin district. The militants also took three vehicles of the workers. Agencies
