World leaders hail peaceful elections

WASHINGTON/ TOKYO/NEW DELHI—The world leaders including US, New Delhi and Tokyo Tuesday hailed the smooth conduct of elections in Pakistan.
‘’We are pleased that elections have been conducted in Pakistan. This is an important step in the path towards an elected civilian democracy that reflects the choices of the Pakistani people,’’ Nicole Thompson, Duty Press Officer at the State Department said.
‘’We and others in the international community have stressed the importance of having a free, fair and transparent election process as possible,’’ she added. There are many international and independent Pakistani monitoring missions in place, and the administration looks forward to reviewing all of their assessments in the days ahead, Thompson said.
‘’We will await for the final election result and the chance to review the monitoring groups reports before commenting further on the process,’’ the senior official added.
Meanwhile, the government of Japan has also hailed Pakistan’s elections as a step towards ‘stable democracy’ in the wake of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s killing.
‘Even after the tragedy of the assassination of former premier Bhutto, the elections took place,’ said Japan’s top government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura. ‘I believe that it was a step towards stable democracy in Pakistan. Similarly, New Delhi has also expressed hope that the democratic institutions and processes had strengthened in Pakistan following yesterday’s polls and stressed that it favoured peace and stability in South Asia.
“Pakistan is India’s neighbor. New Delhi’s wants peace and stability in South Asia,” India’s Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma told reporters in the Eastern Indian city of Kolkata on Tuesday.
US Senator John Kerry, in Pakistan as part of a team to observe parliamentary elections, said Tuesday the vote “meets the basic threshold of credibility and legitimacy.” Kerry, a former US presidential candidate, appeared at a press conference with Senators Joseph Biden and Chuck Hagel.
The trio monitored Pakistan’s crucial vote held Monday. Unofficial preliminary results showed President Pervez Musharraf’s allies facing a rout. Kerry said that “even if the election was not meeting the highest standard,” it “meets the basic threshold of credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of the Pakistani people” as well as observers.
Opposition figures had alleged massive rigging in the run-up to the polls in favour of Musharraf’s allies. But Kerry said that while it was “not a perfect election, not many have been in many parts of the world”. The US senator said that the vote was “truly an historic, decisive moment for Pakistan” and praised people for coming out to cast their ballots despite the threat of violence.—Agencies