Pakistan' President Pervez Musharraf appealed for national unity Monday as electoral officials began counting votes from the general election that had to be postponed from January following widespread violence sparked by the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
Early results show strong support for the two main opposition parties. In one of the first results declared, the leader of the pro-Musharraf party lost to a candidate from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP). A final result is not expected until Wednesday.
Voter turnout was lower than expected. Commentators say it's because people were discouraged by the violence that has marked the campaign and also because of warnings of possible large-scale vote rigging.
Balloting proceeded without major attacks, although the PPP claimed that 15 of its members had been killed and hundreds injured in scattered violence, which it says was a deliberate ploy to keep voters away.
Officials confirmed 24 deaths in election-related violence over the previous 24 hours, mostly in the country's biggest province of Punjab, the key electoral battleground.
President Pervez Musharraf was not on the ballot, but the election was widely seen as a referendum on his eight-year rule and his cozy relationship with the United States in the war.
Musharraf's support dropped in November 2007 after he declared a state of emergency, fired respected justices of the Supreme Court and placed severe restrictions on the independent media. That led to Pakistan's expulsion from the commonwealth.
Two public opinion surveys have predicted that the PPP would finish first, followed by the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q was in third.
That's bad news for Musharraf. A big win for the opposition could mean that he could face impeachment.
The United States is watching very carefully because Musharraf has been their strongest ally in the region. Quite apart from counting on his support in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, the Americans have invested heavily in protecting Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
Just before handing over his military command to take office as a civilian president, Musharraf passed a constitutional amendment putting him in charge of the atomic weapons.
With the voting over and his position shaky, Musharraf has pledged to work with the new government regardless of which party wins.
"I will give them full cooperation as president, whatever is my role," he said. "Confrontationist policies ... should end and we should come into conciliatory politics in the interest of Pakistan. The situation demands this."
See Beena Sarwar's analysis
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