Islamist parties dreading a debacle

Peshawar: Voters are expected to succeed where President Pervez Musharraf has failed, pushing back the Islamist tide and throwing out of power political clerics governing the country's violent northwest.

"God forbid, I will never vote for mullahs," said Saif-ur-Rehman, a bearded stall owner in Qissa Khawani, a famous bazaar in Peshawar, before rushing off for prayers at a mosque in the provincial capital of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Parliamentary and provincial assembly polls set for February 18 will take place against the backcloth of a Taliban and Al Qaida campaign to destabilise Musharraf.

For all the revulsion over almost-weekly suicide attacks, conservative religious folk of the area have more immediate concerns like lack of jobs, rising food prices, power outages and gas shortages that left them without heat over the winter.

The mullahs who have held power in NWFP as well as politicians aligned with the unpopular Musharraf have become discredited.

"What have they done for us poor people?" asked Rehman, who sells a traditional black eyeliner used by men and women in the ethnic Pashtun lands of the northwest. "They have done nothing. Look at this broken road," he scoffed, pointing to a pothole.

Qari Gul Naseeb, NWFP president of the six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), says his Islamist alliance will do better than ever because it is the least corrupt. That claim doesn't jive with what many people think.

One political cleric has a reputation for making money through smuggling diesel, others for creaming off contributions meant for jihadi causes they endorse.

Yet, Pakistani voters have shown high tolerance for corruption in the past, so long as elected leaders delivered, which is what people say the Islamists have failed to do.

"I voted for them last time because everybody was voting for them, but they have done nothing," said Abdul Latif, a young bearded, bespectacled man selling warm clothes at another stall.

The Islamist parties won power in NWFP and shared power in Balochistan, the poorest of the country's four provinces. These provinces border Afghanistan and represent the frontline of the war on terrorism. The government will have an easier time fighting militancy without the Islamists in power locally.

On Saturday, a suicide attack in the northwestern town of Charsadda killed at least 16 people at a rally for the Awami National Party (ANP), an ethnic Pashtun party distrusted by a military establishment which favours centralised government.

Analysts say the Pakistan People's Party of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, and ANP could end up forming a coalition government in NWFP.

"We get the biggest applause in public meetings when we attack the MMA and General Musharraf," Afrasiab Khattak, the provincial president of ANP said.