NOWSHERA/ISLAMABAD, 13 December 2007 — Guarded by hundreds of police, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto took her campaign to Pakistan’s restive tribal northwest as the opposition oiled its vote machinery yesterday to battle President Pervez Musharraf.
After a vote boycott drive disintegrated, main opposition leaders Benazir and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, both returned from exile, organized rallies as a campaign clouded by worries of vote rigging and rising militant attacks geared up.
“We should not sit as silent spectators while terrorists are killing innocent people,” Benazir told supporters in the town of Nowshera in North West Frontier Province, where tribal militants are fighting government forces.
Several thousand people chanted “Prime Minister Benazir” and clapped as she stood to speak from behind a bullet-proof podium.
With the main opposition parties adding some credibility to a Jan. 8 parliamentary election by agreeing to run, political leaders organized their parties before the campaign picks up pace after the publication of candidates’ lists on Sunday.
Sharif held rallies in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, which returns about half the members of Parliament and is his traditional stronghold of support. “These meetings are kind of warm-up matches,” said Ahsan Iqbal, spokesman for Sharif’s party.
The election is essentially a three-way contest between the two main opposition parties and the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), which backs Musharraf.
Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner retired Justice Qazi Farooq has called a meeting of the Election Commission on Dec. 14 to determine the eligibility of Sharif brothers.
Nomination papers of Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif were rejected by returning officers in Lahore because of their convictions in criminal cases.
Akram Shaikh, appearing on behalf on Sharif brothers, argued before the Chief Election Commissioner yesterday that nomination papers of Sharif and Shahbaz had been accepted in 2002 while the two brothers were living in exile.
He further said, “Shahbaz Sharif’s bail was confirmed in Sabza Zaar case and Sharif’s sentence was waived by former President Rafiq Tarar after which the Election Commission had accepted nomination papers of the two leaders.”
This election comes amid opposition fears there is too little time before the Jan. 8 election for a free and fair vote and that the result will be biased in favor of parties loyal to Musharraf, raising the prospect of a contested result.
“Even by Pakistan’s own standards of inefficiently managed, chaotically contested and not-so-fair elections, Election 2008 promises to be a skewed affair,” wrote political analyst Nasim Zehra in The News newspaper yesterday.
Any contested result would lead to the prospect of more instability in the nuclear-armed US ally and likely hurt its efforts to fight militancy.
The election is crucial for Musharraf, who has promised that this weekend he will lift emergency rule, imposed in November.
A poor showing in the election could mean a hostile Parliament that might even move to impeach Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief last month, over accusations he acted unconstitutionally in securing a new term as president.
