Islamabad: Pakistani opposition politicians said on Sunday the government planned to rig the vote in general elections on Monday that could bring in a parliament keen to force President Pervez Musharraf from power.
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 27 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 Musharraf's unpopularity is expected to be a decisive factor in Monday'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 Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup, told a news conference in the eastern city of Lahore.
Sharif and the other main opposition party, 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," Sharif said.
A PPP senator, Latif Khosa, told reporters 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 Musharraf's re-election by the last parliament in October for another five-year term. That too could herald turmoil.
US ally 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 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.
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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 on Monday. Many Pakistanis say they are disillusioned with politics.
"What have these politicians ever done for us? They never fulfil their pre-election promises," said truck driver Sadaqat Ali as he sipped tea from a broken cup at a cafe near Islamabad.
Musharraf, who retired from the army in November, has vowed the vote will be fair, and says he will work with whichever party forms a government and chooses a prime minister.
Like Pakistan's Western allies and its neighbours, Musharraf says he wants a stable government which can focus on tackling terrorism and driving economic growth. Many Pakistanis blame the government for rising prices and food shortages.
None of the main parties -- the PPP, the PML and Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) -- is expected to secure a majority, meaning a coalition is likely. Sharif's party has said it will not enter government as long as Musharraf is president.
But Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, said his party would aim for a broad-based government. "We will try to take all foes and friends together," Zardari, a co-chairman of Bhutto's party, said in a speech. Political analyst Ahmed Rashid said Musharraf wanted a coalition between the PPP and the PML.
Islamist parties that have held sway in the northwest, where violence has surged since July when troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad, are expected to fare badly in the vote.
Polls open at 8 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. "I'll go early and cast my vote as I think there'll be less chance of trouble then," said Saeed-ur-Rehman, 22, a mechanic.
Ballots will be counted in polling stations and results are expected to start emerging towards midnight. The trend should be clear by late on Tuesday morning.
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