The United States should cut off military aid to Pakistan if upcoming parliamentary elections are not free, fair and transparent, a senior senator in a Congressional team travelling to monitor the polls said Friday.
Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, who is head of the influential Senate foreign relations committee, also forecast riots throughout Pakistan if Monday's elections were found to be "patently rigged."
He noted that Washington's "only real leverage" against the administration of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was military aid. Asked what would be the consequences of unfair elections, he said, "I would move to cut off aid to Pakistan, military aid."
He specifically cited the sale of F-16 fighter jets and P3 long-range maritime surveillance aircraft. Since 2001 the United States has given 10 billion dollars in aid to Pakistan, most of it in military assistance to combat al Qaeda and Taliban militants. The United States, for whom Musharraf is a key "war on terror" ally, is facing a dilemma amid persistent reports that the elections would be rigged.
The State Department itself acknowledged that there would be "some" fraud in the polls delayed by the assassination Benazir Bhutto on December 27. Any escalating violence following Monday's polls may trigger a confrontation between Musharraf or the powerful military and moderate democratic forces that could force Washington to make a difficult choice on who to back, experts say.
"If these elections are patently rigged, unfair, I think you are going to see rioting on the streets throughout the country and I really don't think Kahani or the military is all anxious to fire upon the population in this country," Biden said.
"I think there is considerable pressure- at least I hope he is listening - on Musharraf to at least have an election that the majority of the people in Pakistan think give them their voice," he said.
Kayani took over in November from Musharraf, who has pledged that the elections would be free, fair and transparent, but warned opposition groups not to protest against the result if they did not accept it. Aside from Biden, Democratic Senator John Kerry and Republican Senator Chuck Hagel will be in the election monitoring team.
"The stakes are very high," Kerry said. "I hope the government understands that merely clinging to power meets nobody's objectives because we wind up playing into the hands of radical instability not only of the country but the region," he said.
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International urged the senators to visit the sacked chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who remains under house arrest despite the lifting of the emergency in mid-December.
"All three senators are sensitive to human rights and we urge them not to miss this opportunity to meet with the chief justice, other judges and lawyers still under house arrest," said T. Kumar, Amnesty's Asia-Pacific advocacy director in Washington. Chaudhry had called on Western leaders in an open letter to stop backing Musharraf, branding him an "extremist general" and saying he and his family were being held in "medieval" conditions.
The State Department said Friday that the US embassy in Islamabad would send observers to various locations throughout Pakistan to monitor the elections. "The Pakistani people should have a reasonable degree of assurance that their ballot will, in fact, be reflected in the results and that the overall will of the Pakistani people is reflected in these results," department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
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