U.S. concerned over election violence in Pakistan

By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday she was concerned about election violence in nuclear-armed Pakistan and hoped a new government would include "moderate voices."

Violence has intensified in Pakistan in the run-up to the Feb. 18 election that was delayed from Jan. 8 after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a gun and bomb suicide attack on Dec. 27.

Rice told U.S. lawmakers she believed Pakistan's leaders understood there needed to be an election that inspired confidence, but she was concerned over violence ahead of Monday's poll.

"It is not going to easy. We all are concerned about the potential for violence. We are all concerned, of course, about the potential that at least there will be pockets where there may be problems with the elections," Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A roadside bomb blast hit an election campaign convoy on Wednesday, killing two people and wounding three in Pakistan's northwestern Swat valley.

"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.

The United States and others are increasingly uneasy at the prospect of instability in a nuclear-armed Muslim state, that is fighting militants linked to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Washington and others are pressing for Pakistan's new government to be more inclusive of moderate leaders and the United States had been pushing Bhutto to form a partnership with President Pervez Musharraf before her death.