Washington: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has admitted that free and fair polls in Pakistan 'is not going to be easy'.
Presenting her last Budget before the Congress, Rice on Wednesday said the United States was concerned over the potential for violence during the February 18 elections in Pakistan.
"Violence seriously threatens Pakistan's elections on Monday," Rice said. Rice said the Bush administration was advising the Pakistani Government that the poll must inspire confidence and there must be moderate voices in any new government.
"It is not going to be easy. We all are concerned about the potential for violence. We are all concerned, of course, about the potential, that there will be, at least, pockets where there may be problems with the elections. But I think we have to keep pressing and encouraging and insisting that this is an election on which a lot is holding. They have got to inspire confidence that people got to vote freely," she said.
"I believe that the Pakistani leadership understands that they have to have an election that inspires confidence in the Pakistani people that this is a step forward for democracy," Rice said when asked by Senator John Kerry about the prospects for the February 18 general election.
Rice said the US should keep pressing and encouraging the Pakistani leadership to hold free polls. "Once that is done, once the elections are over, the key is going to be to bring about a government that, again, can inspire that there are a wide range of moderate voices that have been integrated into it," she said.
Rice said Washington will 'listen very closely' to international monitors like the European Commission and NGOs on the fairness of the election. "We are asking that everybody at the time of the elections refrain from violence and try to resolve any differences politically," she added.
(With PTI inputs)
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