KEY POINTS:
Leaders of Pakistan's opposition parties have been making frantic last-minute efforts to convince fearful voters to turn out in crucial parliamentary elections today that may plunge the 164 million-strong nation into chaos.
As the last day of official campaigning in the most troubled contest for decades drew to a close yesterday, no one is confident of a victory and many fear widespread unrest in the poll's aftermath.
Continuing violence - more than 40 people have died in the past week - is scaring many voters. There are also concerns of widespread rigging by the Government in order to counter a huge wave of sympathy for the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of assassinated leader Benazir Bhutto, and growing support for the Pakistan Muslim League faction led by the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the PML (N).
In the south of Punjab province, one of the key electoral battlegrounds, voters complained of threats from the police "if they voted the wrong way".
"The police told us we will be arrested or have things charged against us if we vote for the PPP," said one farmer in the remote village of Basti Hari, 50km north of the regional centre of Rahim Yar Khan. Others spoke of being roughed up at election rallies.
"This is very far from being a fair contest," said Makhtoum Shahabuddin, the local PPP candidate and a former Finance Minister. Another local politician said the "law of the jungle" prevailed in the remote, rural area.
The charge of intimidation was denied by Shahabuddin's opponent and cousin, Makhtoum Khusro Bakhtyar, the incumbent MP who represents the third major political party fighting the elections, the faction of the Pakistan Muslim League loyal to the Government, the PML (Q).
Struggling to retain the loyalty of both its MPs and an electorate angered by rising food prices and increasing insecurity, the party is widely seen as little more than a vehicle for President Pervez Musharraf, the Army general who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999 and who has become deeply unpopular in the past year. Bakhtyar, however, was confident his majority would not be overturned and that the vote would be fair.
"The losing party at every election claims the polls had been rigged," he said.
"Sadly it has become almost a ritual in Pakistani politics. The elections will be free and honest. The voters will decide on the basis of our record in power and who they want to run the country in the future."
But in the nearby town of Khanpur, in the marginal constituency NA-193, Zaib Jaffar Chaudry, the candidate for the opposition PML (N), said her supporters had also been harassed, beaten up by paramilitary troops and threatened with false charges by police.
Jaffar said she had discovered four polling stations listed on election documents that did not exist, raising fears of manipulation on the day of the poll, and claimed that names of her supporters had been deleted from electoral rolls while the names of supporters of her opponents appeared several times in the same district.
"It is very depressing," Jaffar said.
On Saturday, the campaign group Human Rights Watch published an audio recording of Pakistan's Attorney-General, Malik Qayyum, who is known as a regime loyalist, apparently telling one politician the elections would be "massively rigged". He later claimed the tape was fabricated.
The question of manipulation is crucial, as the polls pose a serious problem for the ruling party. If Musharraf's PML (Q) does as badly as expected, the centrepiece of the coalition the President had hoped to build will have collapsed, leaving two rival blocs, the PML (N) and the PPP dominant in Parliament.
Even with the extra seats coming from traditional allies among two dozen fringe parties, including some religious groupings, the President will be hard put to form a government without including one of his main enemies. He may even be faced by a "grand coalition" of the PML(N) and the PPP.
Senior figures in both parties said yesterday that such an arrangement, which would almost certainly lead to the removal and possible impeachment of the President, "was under consideration". Nor does Musharraf have the Army's unequivocal support. The man who replaced him as head of the military late last year has ordered his soldiers to stay out of politics.
Even in remote villages, where farmers gather around single TV sets at the end of the day to watch the new and popular local language news talkshows, there is a sense of change in the air.
"The ground is slipping from under the President's feet," said Mohammed Akram Ali, a bicycle mechanic near Rahim Yar Khan. "He is all washed up." Around him, a dozen or so ragged agricultural workers complained about the rocketing price of basic foodstuffs. "Flour and vegetables cost twice as much as they did a year ago," said Rasheed Baksh, 22, unemployed.
The election campaign has been dominated by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27. When Makhtoum Shahabuddin, the PPP candidate near Rahim Yah Khan, arrived in villages for meetings he was greeted with cries of "Jai Bhutto" (Long live Bhutto). Even in the northern and central Punjab, there has been a groundswell of support towards the PPP, with many who have not previously voted deciding to do so. "I will do it for her memory," said Ilyas Masih, a taxi driver in Islamabad.
But, in the long term, the death of Bhutto may cause the PPP huge problems. Many oppose the leadership of Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower, and a split after the election is seen as inevitable.
"Her death is a disaster," said Shahabuddin, who was a close friend of Bhutto. "She was our rallying cry. She was our unity. And in this country's politics family is everything."
- OBSERVER
PAKISTAN
Today: Voting in national and provincial elections.
What's at stake?
There are 272 seats in the Lower House of Parliament, plus a further 60 reserved for women and 10 for religious minorities. Provincial assemblies will also be elected.
What's the big issue?
President Pervez Musharraf and military rule. The vote takes place against a background of rising Islamic militancy, inflation and some food shortages. Musharraf is not up for re-election, but could face impeachment if the opposition wins a two-thirds majority in the legislature.
Who's standing?
Candidates from 49 parties. More than 80 million Pakistanis can vote. Turnout was about 40 per cent in the last polls in 2002. The Pakistan People's Party headed by Asif Zardari is likely to win a majority, followed by the PML(N) party of Nawaz Sharif. The pro-Musharraf PML(Q) led by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain could be wiped out.
What about security?
The Government has deployed 81,000 soldiers to back up 392,000 police.
