Pakistan national polls to be held by end January

ISLAMABAD, Sept 21 (AFP): Pakistan will hold delayed national polls in January next year, the election commission announced Thursday, as the country grapples with overlapping political, economic and security crises.

A caretaker government has been running the South Asian country since parliament was dissolved on August 9, days after former prime minister Imran Khan was imprisoned for graft and barred from contesting elections for five years.

His successor, Shehbaz Sharif, is currently in London consulting with his brother Nawaz Sharif, a three-time former premier who is expected to return to Pakistan next month following four years in exile after being granted medical bail from his own jail sentence.

Polls were supposed to have taken place within 90 days of parliament's dissolution but the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said it needed time to redraw constituency boundaries following the latest census.

The ECP announcement Thursday cheered political analysts and the business community.

"The announcement of a date is a positive and significant sign, however Pakistani politics is so unstable that one can't predict what will happen after three months," political analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi told AFP.

"But all the sufferings of the common people due to inflation and price hikes will have a direct bearing-provided all parties are allowed to campaign and contest elections," he said.

Pakistan Business Forum official Ahmad Jawad told AFP the announcement came as a relief.