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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan lawmakers were on Saturday expected to elect slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's widower as president of the frontline state in the United States-led "war on terror".
Asif Ali Zardari is the clear favourite in a three-way race to take power in a country riven by Islamic militancy and economic turmoil.
Security will be tight as voting begins at 10:00 am (0400 GMT) on Saturday. Zardari has already moved house due to fears of attempts being made on his life, nine months after Bhutto was killed at a campaign rally.
Tensions rose further after a failed assassination attempt on Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, whose car was hit by sniper fire as it drove to meet him at an airport on Wednesday.
Nearly 1,200 people have been killed in bombings and suicide attacks across Pakistan in the past year, in unrest seen as a backlash by militants angry at former president Pervez Musharraf's support for the United States.
Musharraf's August 18 resignation in the face of impeachment charges triggered the election.
Zardari will face a multitude of other problems if he defeats his two opponents.
The economy is backsliding with inflation rampant and a volatile political situation contributing to a 40 percent fall on the stock market since January, in a country already reliant on foreign aid.
Zardari is being challenged by retired chief justice Saeed-uz-Zaman Siddiqui, who is backed by two-time former premier Nawaz Sharif, and Mushahid Hussain, a close aide of Musharraf.
Zardari's aides were Saturday confident of victory in the ballot of the country's two houses of parliament and four provincial assemblies.
"We have a clear majority and our candidate will bag the maximum votes," said PPP President Makhdoom Amin Fahim.
Sharif, meanwhile, was engaged in last ditch lobbying.
"He told a parliamentary meeting of lawmakers that they should vote for Siddiqui," Sharif's spokesman Siddiqul Farooq told AFP.
The election comes amid mounting international concern about the stability of Pakistan which under Musharraf backed the United States after the September 11 attacks in 2001, and in its subsequent invasion of Afghanistan.
Billions of dollars of aid flowed to Islamabad in return.
However, the American military contends that Pakistan's tribal areas have become a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants to use as a launch pad for attacks on international soldiers based across the border.
The United States restated Pakistan's strategic importance late Friday.
"We'll continue to work with them, we need to have their cooperation," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said when asked about bilateral relations in the likelihood of a Zardari victory.
"One of the reasons that Zardari will become the president is because unfortunately his wife was killed by terrorists, so they have a mutual interest in trying to go after terrorists," Perino told reporters.
As co-chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), Zardari already heads a fragile coalition government which, although still in office, recently lost the backing of Sharif's party.
If Bhutto's widower wins on Saturday, the role of president will allow him to go further and dismiss governments and appoint leaders of the ever lurking military that has ruled Pakistan for half its existence.
Polling will close at 3:00 pm with unofficial results announced in the parliament soon after voting ends. The official verdict will come later in the evening.
- AFP/so
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