The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Multan

The strength of a sympathy vote for assassinated Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in the country's biggest province is likely to determine the result of a general election on Feb. 18.

The vote could seal the fate of President Pervez Musharraf, even though it is not a presidential election, with opponents calling for the increasingly unpopular leader to step down.

"Certainly there's a sympathy vote," said Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, a vice chairman of Bhutto's party standing in Punjab province, where half the country's 160 million people live and half of its members of parliament will be elected.

"If there's a free, fair and transparent election the PPP will be number one," Gilani said at his house in the city of Multan, while aides bustled about in the gloom of a power cut. Months of political turmoil and militant violence have raised worries about the stability for the nuclear-armed U.S. ally.

Fear of violence has stifled election campaigning, especially after Bhutto was killed on Dec. 27 in an attack the government blamed on militants, and is also expected to hurt turnout in the election for a National Assembly and four provincial assemblies.

A suicide bomb attack on Saturday at a rally by an ethnic Pashtun nationalist party opposed to Musharraf killed at least 16 people.

Opposition parties have also complained of rigging in favour of Musharraf's allies.

The main challengers to the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (PML) are Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the party of Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf ousted in a coup in 1999. Punjab is their main battleground.

"She was very brave and gave Musharraf a tough time, which nobody else has dared to do. People should vote for her party," Punjab labourer Jumma Khan said of Bhutto.

Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief in November, has lost popularity over his efforts to cling to power, which included the purging of the judiciary and gagging of the media after he imposed a six-week stint of emergency rule on Nov. 3.

His security ties with the United States are also unpopular.

But it is inflation, power cuts and shortages of the staple flour and natural gas that could scupper the election hopes of the PML, which has been ruling under Musharraf.

Musharraf won re-election for another five-year term as president in an October vote by legislators. But critics say he has held on to power unconstitutionally and he could face efforts to unseat him in an opposition-dominated parliament.

Bhutto's party is expected to sweep rural areas of her home province of Sindh and split the vote in its capital, Karachi, with a pro-Musharraf party.

It also looks set to make gains in Punjab, which has the country's most independent voters, unattached to a party and free from caste or tribal voting compulsions, said political analyst and academic Rasul Bakhsh Rais.

"The People's Party has a much brighter chance now than it probably could have had with Bhutto on the scene," Rais said of the sympathy vote. "Punjab is key and I see some change in Punjab in their favour."