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Pakistani campaigning intensifies

Pakistan's election campaign intensified yesterday with the three top political leaders rallying supporters across the country just two weeks before a parliamentary election.

The Jan. 8 polls, demanded by Pakistan's Western allies, are seen as a crucial step in restoring democracy after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's Nov. 3 declaration of emergency rule and his crackdown on the judiciary, political opponents and the independent media. Musharraf lifted the state of emergency six weeks later.

Former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who both returned from exile for the campaign, scheduled rallies in their opponents' home districts yesterday in an effort to poach voters. Both candidates, pledging to work together against Musharraf, were hoping to win enough seats to loosen the former army chief's grip on power.

Speaking to 3,000 people in the town of Sukkur, in Bhutto's home province of Sindh, Sharif accused Musharraf of presiding over a worsening economy and sparking violent confrontations across the country.

"The country is soaked in blood and fire from Khyber to Karachi," Sharif said.

BANNED

Sharif has been banned from running for office himself, but was addressing voters on behalf of his party's candidates.

He also accused Musharraf of fealty to the US and said the president's dismissal of top judges had turned the country into an international laughingstock.

Sadiq ul-Farooq, a leader of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N party, said Musharraf "would prefer a docile prime minister to legitimize all of the actions he had taken after imposing emergency rule."

"Only people like Pervez Elahi can serve in this job," ul-Farooq said, referring to the candidate of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q.

Yesterday, Bhutto told a rally in the southern city of Rahim Yar Khan, in Sharif's eastern Punjab Province, that she would create more jobs, provide loans, alleviate poverty and allot land to the homeless.

"I am fighting this war for the rights of the masses," she said.

Elahi campaigned yesterday in the city of Jehlum, near his home district.

FAILURE

On Sunday, Bhutto accused Musharraf's government of failing to crush Islamic militants, days after a suicide bombing killed 56 people during prayers in a mosque in the northwest.

Hours after Bhutto spoke, a suicide bomb attack on a military convoy killed five civilians and four soldiers in Pakistan's troubled northwest, an army statement said. It said 13 civilians and 10 soldiers were also wounded.
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