The posthumous poll

To a fanfare of suicide-bomb blasts, Pakistanis are due to deliver their verdict on wheat, America and Pervez Musharraf

Feb 14th 2008 | LAHORE | From The Economist print edition

ON A lofty platform, out of suicide-bomb range, Shahbaz Sharif, a leader of Pakistan's second opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) or PML (N), promises poor Lahoris change. “Our leaders have been buying themselves bullet-proof cars and doing nothing for the people!” he thunders. A thousand men—about half the number expected to turn up to a dusty bazaar in the city—roar in approval. Then Mr Sharif is gone: whisked away by a motorcade that may include the two bullet-proof cars given to the PML-N by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

The run-up to a general election due on February 18th has seen relatively little campaigning—but lots of violence. Since the assassination on December 27th of Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), over 400 people have been killed by terrorists, mostly in suicide-bombings. The Awami National Party, the only outfit campaigning hard near the radicalised frontier with Afghanistan, suffered bomb attacks on its rallies on February 9th and 11th, in which 36 perished.

This week the government struck back. In Baluchistan province, it arrested the Taliban's former operations chief in Afghanistan, Mullah Mansoor Dadullah. The same day in north-western Pakistan kidnappers seized Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, with his guard and driver. They have reportedly offered to swap them for Mr Dadullah.

The violence may deter many Pakistanis from voting. Even in safer times, most do not bother with it: 41% of voters turned out in the country's previous election in 2002. A low turnout would help President Pervez Musharraf, a recently demobbed army ruler, to rig the election on behalf of his political allies, the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), or PML(Q). Rigging by army spies is another Pakistani election tradition. The International Republican Institute (IRI) has withdrawn election monitors on security grounds—and having been refused permission to conduct exit polls.

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