The New Nation - Internet Edition

Pakistan tense on election eve, Parachinar town under curfew

Reuters, Islamabad

Pakistani politicians were making final preparations on Sunday for a general election the next day that could usher in a parliament intent on forcing U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf from power. Authorities imposed a curfew in a northwestern town after 40 were killed in a suicide bomb attack on supporters of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Saturday.

Fears of militant violence have overshadowed the campaign, which officially ended at midnight on Saturday, especially after opposition leader Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack on Dec. 27 as she left a rally in Rawalpindi.

Voting was postponed from Jan. 8 after Bhutto's death, which raised fears about the nuclear-armed country's stability.

Saturday's suicide blast in Parachinar, near the Afghan border, was the most bloody attack in the campaign and looked bound to compound fears of election-day violence that analysts say could hurt turnout.

"The election won't make any difference. There's no chance of any improvement as long as Musharraf is around," said Ahmed Khan, a 33-year-old shopkeeper in the town of Taxila, near Islamabad. Former army chief Musharraf is not taking part in the elections for a new parliament and provincial assemblies but his rule looks set to be a decisive factor. A hostile parliament could challenge Musharraf's October re-election for another five-year term by legislators which critics said was unconstitutional. That could herald turmoil.

Musharraf's popularity was hurt when he tried to dismiss the country's top judge in March, then took a dive in November when he imposed six weeks of emergency rule to stymie legal challenges to his re-election.

Other decisive factors, analysts say, will be the strength of of a sympathy vote for Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the degree of rigging.

The PPP and the other main opposition party, led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, have complained of widespread rigging by Musharraf's allies and they have vowed protests if they are robbed of victory.

Musharraf, who retired from the army in November, rejects complaints of rigging and says procedures have been refined to prevent cheating. He says he is ready to work with whichever party forms a government and chooses a prime minister.

Albanian triumph, Serb anger as Kosovo secedes

Reuters, Pristina

Kosovo Albanians will proclaim independence from Serbia on Sunday, ending a long chapter in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia but cementing a bitter ethnic frontline in the Balkans.

Kosovo will be the 6th state carved from the Serb-dominated federation since 1991, after Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro, and the last to escape Serbia's embrace.

The Serbs vow never to give up the land where their history goes back 1,000 years.

They will reject independence in defiance of the Albanians and their Western backers and will keep their grip on strongholds in northern Kosovo, making the ethnic partition of the new state a reality from the start.

President George W. Bush said the United States, which has 1,700 troops in Kosovo's NATO-led peacekeeping force of 16,000, would work with its allies to make sure there was no violence.

"The United States will continue to work with our allies to do the very best we can to make sure there's no violence," he said during a visit to Tanzania. Bush added that he was heartened by the Kosovo government's proclaimed willingness to support Serbian rights.

Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said on Saturday: "The success of Kosovo's independence as a new beginning will be clearly measured by respect for the rights of minorities, especially Serbs."

Snow blanketed the capital on Sunday morning after triumphant celebrations the night before, thousands of Albanians pouring into the streets, flags in every hand and car horns blaring. Banners proclaimed "Happy Independence."

"Today, a new life begins. The past should not be forgotten, but it belongs to the past, and should be forgiven," the Kosovo daily Koha Ditore wrote.

Ten years ago this week, Serb forces fought an Albanian guerrilla uprising, killing civilians who got in the way. Major Western powers were calling for talks. Russia backed Serbia in its battle with "terrorists."

Determined to end a decade of humiliation from Belgrade under the late autocrat Slobodan Milosevic, the Albanians fought on until the West, unable to sit powerless after other Balkan bloodbaths, bombed Serbia into submission in 1999.

Obama, Hillary feud over role of 'superdelegates’

AFP, Washington

The US presidential race heated up Sunday after White House hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton clashed with rival Barack Obama over how the Democratic Party should choose its presidential nominee.

Trailing Obama in the nomination race after losing eight straight contests to the Illinois senator, Clinton and her advisers suggested hundreds of "superdelegates" -- party activists and elected lawmakers attending the Democratic convention in August -- were not bound by the results of voting in their states, US media reported.

"Superdelegates are a part of the process," Clinton was quoted as saying by the Washington Post. "They are supposed to exercise independent judgment," Clinton said on Saturday while campaigning in Wisconsin, which holds primaries on Tuesday.

Clinton and her advisers made clear their view that the 795 unelected superdelegates could clinch the nomination for her even if Obama prevails among voters in primaries and caucuses.

Obama, who has won the popular vote so far, has argued that superdelegates should back the candidate who wins the most delegates based on primaries and caucuses in states across the country. He now has a slight lead in pledged delegates after a string of victories and hopes to extend his winning streak in Wisconsin and in caucuses in Hawaii on Tuesday. But senior Clinton aide Harold Ickes told reporters the superdelegates should exercise "their best judgment in the interests of the party and the country."

Ickes predicted that after all primaries are concluded on June 7, "she (Clinton) will be neck and neck with Mr Obama t Then she will wrap up the nomination." Ickes also argued the results of delegates from Michigan and Florida should count even though the candidates agreed not to campaign in those states. The national Democratic Party stripped the two states of delegates after they flouted party rules and moved up the date of their primaries.

Obama's campaign promptly shot back, accusing Clinton of planning to undermine the popular will of Democratic voters.