Condoleezza Rice in Washington. (Reuters)

Washington, Feb. 13 (Reuters): US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said today 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 February 18 election that was delayed from January 8 after the assassination of Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a gun and bomb suicide attack on December 27.

Rice told US 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 today, killing two 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.