Pak polls on 11 May as Zardari’s PPP completes term

Pakistan's first elected government in 66 years to have lasted its full five-year term in office, today announced that general elections for the next government would be held on 11 May.

President Asif Ali Zardari, head of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP), had formally asked Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf to set a date for a fresh election after the Pakistan National Assembly completed its term on Saturday.

''In view of legal provisions … the prime minister today advised the president to announce a suitable date for holding general elections to the National Assembly which the president did by announcing 11 May as the date for elections,'' said Farhatullah Babar, spokesman for the president.

Under the constitution, the election should be held within 60 days of the end of a government's term.

In the meantime a caretaker administration will manage the country, with its well-known weaknesses on all fronts, from controlling rampant terrorist activity to providing basic amenities for its citizens.

The US, which remains Pakistan's biggest donor out of geo-political considerations despite increasing doubts about that country's reliability as an ally, clearly hopes that the elections will usher in stability in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region.

Pakistan's military has ruled the country, through coups, for more than half of its 66-year history, and its ties with civilian leaders are often strained.

Army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani has promised to keep Pakistan's all-powerful military out of politics, and there so far seem no signs of the generals backing any particular party for the polls.

Pakistanis have become frustrated with the rule of Asif Ali Zardari, widower of the slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto, for its corruption and mismanagement of the fragile economy and inability to curb Islamist militancy or tackle poverty.

In the coming election, the PPP would face its strongest challenge from former prime minister and current opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, who was toppled by Gen Pervez Musharraf in a military coup in 1999.

Former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf, who threw out Nawaz Sharif, is expected to return from self-exile in Dubai to take part in the election.

The election could mark the first time that one elected civilian government hands over to another in the country of 180 million, which has seen three military coups and four military rulers.