By Muhammad Najeeb, IANS
Islamabad : Balloting was underway Saturday for presidential elections in Pakistan that incumbent Pervez Musharraf is expected to win easily amid an opposition boycott.
Members of the federal parliament and provincial assemblies supporting the government took part in the voting that began at 10 a.m. here in Islamabad and in Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar.
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) abstained from the widely condemned electoral exercise, increasing the strength of parties whose members earlier quit the federal and provincial legislatures to protest Musharraf’s candidature while he is still the army chief.
The PPP announcement was made an hour before the polling began.
Musharraf is sure to win the presidency for another five years though the Supreme Court Friday directed the Election Commission not to announce the results until it decided on petitions challenging Musharraf’s candidature.
“I am sure to win the elections and will quit the army chief’s position as planned,” Musharraf said late night on TV where he answered questions by viewers as a presidential candidate.
The opposition All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), whose members have resigned from the assemblies, has given a countrywide strike call while lawyers, in the forefront of a campaign against Musharraf, have urged people to observe Saturday as “black day”.
The National Assembly and Senate as well as all the four assemblies in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and North West Frontier Province make up the electoral college for the presidential election.
“We are on the victory stand,” Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, a strong supporter of Musharraf, told reporters outside the parliament house here.
PPP chairperson Bhutto is, however, negotiating a power-sharing deal with Musharraf.
In a desperate bid to have her on his side, Musharraf, whose popularity is rapidly on the wane, Friday night issued a National Reconciliation Ordinance giving immunity to politicians and bureaucrats facing corruption and criminal charges in courts.
Bhutto, who faces several corruption charges, is the main beneficiary of the ordinance.
But both PPP and the government insist that the ordinance is not individual specific, rather a step towards national reconciliation. They are comparing it with the post-apartheid era in South Africa.
“We have decided to abstain from the polling process, taking a principle stand against the candidature of a uniformed person,” PPP’s Makhdoom Amin Fahim said.
In the presidential election, also being fought by several others who are all expected to lose, the main support to Musharraf comes from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q).