PAKISTAN:Pakistani opposition politicians said yesterday the government planned to rig the vote in general elections today that could bring in a parliament keen to force the president Pervez Musharraf from power, writes Zeeshan Haiderin Islamabad.
Fears of militant violence have overshadowed the campaign and are expected to result in a low turnout.
A suicide bomber killed 47 people in an attack on supporters of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on Saturday. The election was postponed after Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack on December 27th as she left a rally in Rawalpindi.
Her death heightened concern about nuclear-armed Pakistan's future at a time when al Qaeda is accused of trying to destabilise the Muslim nation of 160 million people.
It is not a presidential election but former army chief Mr Musharraf's unpopularity is expected to be a decisive factor in today's vote for a new parliament and provincial assemblies.
The opposition, however, say pre-poll rigging has damaged their chances.
"It is more than clear that a massive rigging plan is in place and has been implemented," former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who Mr Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, told a news conference in the eastern city of Lahore.
Mr Sharif and the other main opposition party, Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), which has been riding a wave of sympathy since her murder, have vowed protests if they are cheated of victory.
"We and the People's Party must win more than a simple majority. If we are deprived of that it means there has been massive rigging and we will both call for protests," Mr Sharif said.
A PPP senator, Latif Khosa, told reporters Mr Musharraf's allies had prepared hundreds of "ghost" polling stations where ballot boxes would be stuffed with votes for the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (PML).
Street protests over the result would raise questions about how the powerful military might react.
But if the opposition does as well as opinion polls suggest, a hostile parliament could challenge the constitutionality of Mr Musharraf's re-election by the last parliament in October for another five-year term. That too, could herald turmoil.
Mr Musharraf's popularity was hurt when he tried to dismiss Pakistan's top judge in March, and took a further dive in November when he imposed six weeks of emergency rule to block legal challenges to his re-election.
But Ms Bhutto's widower struck a conciliatory note, saying his party would form a broad-based government if it won, and that it wanted to negotiate with the military-led establishment on increasing the powers of parliament. A man was killed and five people were wounded in a shooting on an election office of a Sharif party candidate in Lahore but police said the motive appeared to have been a personal dispute.More than 80,000 troops will back up police today. Many Pakistanis say they are disillusioned with politics.
None of the main parties - the PPP, the PML and Mr Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) - is expected to secure a majority, meaning a coalition is likely.- (Reuters)