Grim Pakistanis risk safety to vote

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistanis will brave the risk of bomb attacks to vote in an election on Monday that could return a parliament set on driving U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf out of power.

The election should have happened last month, but the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto after a political rally in Rawalpindi on Dec. 27 forced a delay.

The death of Bhutto, the most progressive, Western-friendly politician in a Muslim nation rife with anti-American sentiment, heightened concerns about stability in the nuclear-armed state, and the vote is being keenly watched by allies and neighbors.

There is a security scare in large parts of Pakistan, where Musharraf has ruled since coming to power as a general in a coup in 1999, and a suicide attack on supporters of Bhutto's party killed 47 people in a town near the Afghan border on Saturday.

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"We are confused. We don't have good leaders and we don't know where our country is going," said Isa, a lecturer at a state-run college in Islamabad, reflecting despair felt by many of the 160 million people in a country that has alternated between civilian and army rule throughout its 60-year history.

Well over 450 people have died in militant-related violence this year alone, and fear could lead to a low turnout that would probably help Musharraf's allies.

More than 80,000 troops will back up police on Monday to stop violence.

The other worry is rigging, which could prompt opposition parties to reject the result and call for street protests, raising concern over how the Pakistan army would react.

Otherwise, a sympathy wave is expected to help Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party emerge as the largest party in the 342 National Assembly.

Polls open at 8 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. Results are expected to start emerging toward midnight and trends should be clear late on Tuesday morning.

Most analysts doubt PPP can get a majority. Who it chooses for coalition partners will be vital to Musharraf's future.

"We will try and take all friends and foes together," Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari and de facto leader of the PPP said in a speech on the eve of the vote.

Western allies, who want a stable Pakistan focused on fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban, are hoping moderate forces will prevail.

Investors in a stock market that rose 40 percent last year, and has shed six percent since Bhutto's death, feel the same.

If PPP does come out on top its choice of principal coalition partner lies between the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League or the party of Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf ousted.

An alliance between the PPP and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), better known as the PML-N or Nawaz League, is what Musharraf dreads as Sharif is intent on bringing him down.

There were two shooting incidents outside election offices of Sharif's party in Lahore on Sunday, three men were killed, including a candidate for the provincial assembly.

Musharraf's critics say his efforts to retain power have become a source of instability.

Many people disbelieve the government's assertion that Bhutto was killed by a suicide team sent by a Pakistani Taliban leader with links to al Qaeda, and suspect shadowy members of the conservative establishment were behind the assassination.

Musharraf has not been forgiven for imposing emergency rule for six weeks in November to sack judges who might have blocked his re-election for a second term by the outgoing assemblies.

Though the vote is not a presidential poll, Musharraf's unpopularity is expected to play a big part in determining the make-up of the National Assembly and four provincial assemblies.

Pakistanis are angry with Musharraf for many reasons, and he is more vulnerable after quitting as army chief in November.

He is blamed for everything from rising food and fuel prices, to the insecurity resulting from fighting a war against militants that many Pakistanis think is America's, not theirs.

"I haven't seen such a situation in my life, when prices of all goods have shot up," said Sheikh Mohammed, a white-bearded man selling fruit from a roadside stall in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province. "Then there's the law and order situation."