Pakistan opposition gears up for election campaign

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PESHAWAR, Dec 12 (Reuters): From the volatile tribal northwest to the wealthy farm land of Punjab, Pakistan's main opposition leaders geared up their election machinery Wednesday to challenge President Pervez Musharraf.
After a vote boycott drive disintegrated, both former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, back from years in exile, planned to meet party workers and hold public meetings as a campaign clouded by worries of vote rigging gathered momentum.
With the main opposition parties adding some credibility to the election by agreeing to run, political leaders were oiling their party machinery before the campaign picks up pace after the publication of candidates lists Sunday.
Bhutto planned to meet her party candidates in the northwestern town of Nowshera near Peshawar, capital of the restive North West Frontier Province where in some tribal areas militants are battling government forces.
Sharif planned three public meetings in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, which returns about half the members of parliament and is his traditional stronghold of support.
"These meetings are kind of warm-up matches," said Ahsan Iqbal, spokesman for Sharif.
The election is essentially a three-way contest between the two main opposition parties and the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), which backs Musharraf and plays up the strong growth Pakistan has enjoyed under its rule.
The election comes amid opposition fears there is too little time before the January 8 election for a free and fair vote and that the result will be biased in favor of parties loyal to Musharraf, raising the prospect of a contested result.
"Even by Pakistan's own standards of inefficiently managed, chaotically contested and not-so-fair elections, Election 2008 promises to be a skewed affair," wrote political analyst Nasim Zehra in The News newspaper Wednesday.