Bhutto's party heads to victory in Pakistani elections (3rd Lead)

Feb 19, 2008, 6:10 GMT

Islamabad - The party of assassinated Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was heading toward victory Tuesday in crucial parliamentary elections that delivered a devastating defeat to embattled President Pervez Musharraf and his ruling party.

Unofficial results from 215 of the 272 National Assembly seats showed Bhutto's Pakistani People's Party (PPP) with 69 seats, followed by opposition leader Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 62, giving the duo a commanding 60 percent of the vote.

The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) was a distant third with 29 seats, and several of its top leaders also lost their individual races. An alliance of Muslim-based parties that backed Musharraf was also trounced at the polls.

Results from Monday's national and provincial assembly elections were still coming in, mostly from Bhutto's native Sindh province, which the PPP is expected to sweep and further add onto its lead. Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide-bomb attack on December 27 and the PPP appears to have capitalized on voter sympathy and anger with Musharraf's military-backed government.

But Sharif's PML-Nawaz also did much better than expected, and was the runaway leader in his home Punjab province, the most hotly-contested region and where the ruling PML-Q is also based.

The results indicated that Monday's elections were generally free and fair, as Musharraf had promised, amid persistent allegations of planned vote-rigging by his government. Feared widespread election violence including suicide bombings also never materialized, although at least 19 people died in clashes between pro-government and opposition supporters.

Opposition party workers started victory celebrations overnight in Sindh and Punjab, dancing in the street, firing guns into the air, and distributing sweets, a traditional practice.

'We are feeling good,' said Ahsan Iqbal, the PML-N's information secretary, who also won a national parliament seat. 'The Pakistani public has voted against Musharraf's policies, and for change.'

PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the results showed that the public had enough of Musharraf's moves to change the constitution to remain in power.

'The public has always been demanding change,' he said. 'Most of the people of Pakistan wanted Musharraf to quit.'

Most senior PML-Q candidates, including the party's president, its prime ministerial candidate, and several members of the Musharraf government cabinet all lost in their respective constituencies.

Geo news channel reported that Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, leader of the PML-Q and Musharraf's close aid, lost by almost 14,000 votes in his hometown against a PPP candidate.

Sheikh Rashid, another close aide to the president and PML-Q candidate, also lost by a wide margin in what analysts said was part of a massive backlash against Musharraf, a recently retired Army general who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999.

Analysts characterized Monday's polls as crucial for the survival of the embattled president, a key US ally in the region.

Musharraf was at the center of a year-long political crisis that escalated in November 2007 after he declared a state of emergency, suspended the constitution and sacked the Supreme Court judges whom he feared were going to overturn his controversial presidential re-election the previous month.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan has also been rocked by dozens of suicide bombings from pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda militants operating in the country's lawless tribal areas near Afghanistan, who were also blamed for killing Bhutto.

Musharraf said Monday that he would accept whichever party won the polls and appoint the prime minister, as well as control of the four provincial governments.