TOKYO, Oct 1 Kyodo Japan plans to...

TOKYO, Oct 1 Kyodo

Japan plans to fling an observer team to monitor general elections fix to take place in Pakistan in succession Oct. 10, a Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday.

The beholder team to the polls, Pakistan's first since the October 1999 coup that set President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power, is scheduled to comprise around 10 personnel the official added.

bystanders from the 15-member European Union, from the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) and from the Commonwealth, comprising 54 unraveled and developing nations, have already arrived in Pakistan to monitor the elections.

NDI on-lookers have voiced concern about progression in a continuously ascending gradations in advance of the elections, including the blocking of the candidacy of former prime ministers and opposition party leaders Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, and a requirement that all candidates be university graduates, which eliminated 90% of Pakistan's population from standing for office.

They have also been troubl by way of an April 30 referendum held on Musharraf to extend his mandate as president for another five years, and his amendments to the Constitution last August that empowered him to dismiss parliament and appoint the chiefs of the military services.

Another amendment established a formal, constitutional character for the military in governance by the and of formation of a National Security Council.

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