Pakistan fearful of violence on election day

Pakistan goes to the polls today amid nervousness less about the result - its military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, has already ensured that he will remain in overall charge - than the risk of election day mayhem.

Fears are running high that the nation's sceptical trudge to the ballot box for the first time in five years will be marred by a resurgence of the violence that has claimed scores of lives so far this year.

Pakistani security officials said yesterday that they had arrested three men whom they allege were planning to set off bombs in the capital of Islamabad and nearby Rawalpindi in order to disrupt voting.

Such concerns are being seen by the Foreign Office as sufficiently serious to justify issuing fresh advice to British nationals to stay away, saying that the elections are "likely to increase levels of tension" and declaring that there is a "significant threat from terrorism to visibly Western institutions and individuals, particularly in major urban areas".

More than 60 people have been killed in Pakistan this year in attacks on Western-linked or Christian targets, many of which have been blamed on militant Islamic organisations opposed to President Musharraf's support for the American assault on the Taliban and al Qa'ida.

The poll has been portrayed by General Musharraf - who seized power in a coup almost exactly three years ago - as a transition from military to civilian rule, although he has taken the precaution of furnishing himself with the power to dismiss the newly-elected parliament and prime minister at will, and of awarding himself another five years in the president's suite.

Human rights activists in Pakistan allege that he and his powerful intelligence services have gone further than this, by systematically rigging the election beforehand to ensure the election of a stooge government - comfortable in the knowledge that any complaints from the US and its allies will be muted because of his support for the "war on terror."

Pakistan's independent Human Rights Commission has accused government officials of blatantly coercing voters into supporting pro-Musharraf candidates, and has declared that it is "abundantly clear" the elections "will not usher in a new period of democratic rule."

Analysts believe the pro-Musharraf PML (QA), a faction of the Pakistan Muslim League which the general and his colleagues in the military have been busy bolstering, are set to emerge as the strongest party and will form a coalition. If so, its leader, the 61-year-old Mian Mohammed Azhar - a supporter of the army which is now ruling Pakistan - can be expected to become prime minister.

General Musharraf has made his task easier by ensuring the absence of the two biggest challengers - the former prime ministers (plural), Benazir Bhutto, of the Pakistan People's Party, who faces corruption charges, and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League.

The eyes of western policy makers will be on the showing by Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six hard-line Islamic groups that vow to make Pakistan a "true Islamic state." It opposes Musharraf's support for the US, and includes some groups thought to have close links with the Taliban.