Upmarket Pakistan District Votes Again as Imran Khan Decries Killing

It was not immediately clear who killed Zara Shahid Hussain, a senior member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party of former cricket hero Imran Khan, who accused the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) party, which has a stranglehold on the city.

MQM leaders denied responsibility and demanded a retraction from Khan.

The attack in the upscale Defence area, the family neighbourhood of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, capped a bloody election campaign in which around 150 people were killed nationwide.

Last Saturday's elections handed a landslide victory to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

But results from a handful of constituencies across the country are still uncertain amid accusations of vote-rigging. There is repolling in a few others where security issues prevented voting.

Last week's election gave the MQM 18 of 19 national assembly seats in Karachi. The constituency where Sunday's repoll was taking place, known blandly as NA-250, is thought to be a stronghold of the PTI.

Whatever the results, Sharif's national landslide win is assured. But as Pakistan's financial centre, Karachi generates around half of government revenues and stability in the city is key to stability of the whole country.

Sunday's voting took place at 43 polling stations across the constituency and, for the first time, each ballot box was guarded by a ranger and a soldier inside the booth instead of outside.

Police said that two gunmen shot Hussain outside her home in Defence.

"Her death has sent shockwaves across the rank and file of the party," Khan said in a statement.

"I hold (MQM leader) Altaf Hussain directly responsible for the murder as he openly threatened PTI workers and leaders through public broadcasts," Khan, recovering in hospital from a fall during campaigning, added in a tweet.

"I also hold the British government responsible as I had warned them about British citizen Altaf Hussain after his open threats."

Altaf Hussain is accused of murder in Pakistan and leads his party remotely from exile in England. His party is designated a terrorist organization by Canada, a charge it strongly denies.

In recent days he gave a speech which many Pakistanis felt was an incitement to attack political rivals. British police are investigating whether or not it constituted a hate speech.

The MQM, a secular party, is locked in a battle with various rival contenders for influence in Karachi, including Pakistan's Taliban movement, which has sought to gain a foothold in various districts on the outskirts of the city in recent years.

Khan's election campaign electrified many Pakistanis, pushing the PTI from a marginal party to Pakistan's third largest.

Karachi, the nuclear-armed country's key port, is home to 18 million people. It typically sees about a dozen murders a day, a combination of political killings, attacks by the Pakistan Taliban and sectarian militant groups, and street crime.

(Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing)

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Analysis of news: in the second debate, Obama strikes again

President Obama, who concluded that he was "too polite" in his first debate with Mitt Romney, ensured no say that after their second. He broke off, he scolded, he filibustered, he shook his head.

He tried to talk the right over Mr. Romney, who tried to talk over him back. President, who waited patiently on his trip last time around forced its way into Mr. Romney time this time. At one point he squared Mr. Romney face to face, almost chest to chest, in the middle of the stage, as if they were in a ring of roos.

"The Governor Romney said just not true."

"Not true, Governor Romney, not true."

"What you say is simply not true."

For a President who is a threat on the edge of a single expression, could make a stronger case at Hofstra University on Long Iceland Tuesday night could hardly have been more compelling. Thirteen days after the presidential election, he took decency to a Xanax extreme, he tucked away a dinner of steak and potatoes and then went out on stage with lots of red meat for eager supporters.

If it decisively want to redirect the course of the campaign is still visible, but the President emerged from the encounter have settled nerves within his panicky party and claim a new chance to frame the race with just three weeks left.

Heading into the evening, said the Obama camp that he needed at least a draw to turn turmoil over the first debate and running some of the potential drama from the final meeting on Monday. But the risk was, of course, that a confrontation could turn very happy swing voters he covets.

Strategy on Tuesday evening was clear: undercut Mr. Romney character and credibility by portraying him as lying about his true views on issues like taxes and abortion. Mr. Obama questioned again and again about the man on stage with him was the same "serious conservative" candidate that time right in the Republican primary election.

He painted Mr. Romney as a tool of big oil, which is soft on China, hard on immigrants, political rough on Libya and hypocritical on guns and energy. He inserted many of the attack lines that went unused in Denver, after Mr. Romney business record, his personal income taxes and are considered in the final minutes of debate, his comments about 47 percent of Americans he once too dependent on the Government.

"Governor Romney has a five-point plan," charged Mr. Obama. "He has a one-point plan" which is to help the rich, he said.

He mocked Mr. Romney, noting that he once closed a coal plant as Governor of Massachusetts. "Now suddenly you are a great champion of coal," he said.

As for trade, he said, "Governor, you are the last person who will get tough on China."

And he pressed Mr. Romney for not revealing how he would pay for his tax and deficit reduction targets. "We have not heard from the Governor any specifics beyond big bird and eliminate funding for planned parenthood," he said.

Mr. Romney held its own and gave as good as he got, presenting Mr. Obama as a failed President who has stacked on trillions of dollars of debt, leaving millions of Americans without work, security for American personnel in Libya, done nothing to reform entitlement programs bungled and deserted a middle class "crushed under the policies of a President who does not understand what it takes to get the economy working again."

But it was Mr. Obama who was the central storyline of the night, his performance, comes across as a striking contrast to the, his first face-off with Mr. Romney. In the days leading to Tuesday night encounter, Mr. Obama huddled in a Virginia resort with advisers to practice a more aggressive approach, without which one way or another referenced illegitimate or passage over a line of presidential dignity. It was a line he would stride up to several times during more than 90 minutes, and some would argue that he slipped over it. at times.

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