ISLAMABAD, Dec 31: Pakistanis went to the polls today in staggered local elections which the military rulers here say is the first step toward a return to democracy for this poor nation of 140 million people, reports AP.

Elections for municipal and district councils are being held in 18 of 106 districts in Pakistan. The last of the elections will be held in July.

In this round of voting Kanwar Dilshad of the election commission says that 31,605 candidates are vying for 20,076 seats. There are an estimated nine million registered voters in the 18 districts.

For the first time in Pakistan's troubled political history seats have been allocated specifically for women and the poor an attempt the military says to

create a more egalitarian nation.

Pakistan has been traditionally ruled by either the military or mostly corrupt politicians, who belong to the wealthiest and most powerful in a country the vast majority earn barley dlrs 400 a year and only a few can read or write.

The latest round of military rule began in October 1999 when the army seized power from the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif, who was imprisoned and later sent into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The military accused Sharif and his colleagues of rampant corruption, economic mismanagement and power abuse.

Army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf promised to hold elections, but said the system required massive reforms to clean up corruption that had become endemic and revise electoral rolls that were antiquated and in some cases bogus.

Because of the widespread illiteracy in Pakistan ballots have been marked with pictures or symbols rather than words.

Each candidate is represented by a symbol such as a lock, a radio, a lamp, an apple. There are thousands of symbols.

Voting results are not expected to be released for one week.

Munneza Tarar, a women's

activist in Sargodha district, questioned the delay in announcing the vote. She also was pessimistic about the real extent of female participation in Pakistan's male-dominated society, where girls are often married off at puberty, withdrawn from school at a young age and forced into servitude.

In Sargodha, a district 200 kilometers (160 miles) southeast of Islamabad there are 164 seats not being contested because Tarar says the administration was unable to find a woman willing to run.

"They are frightened. People attack their character and ask 'why is she coming out of the house? What kind of a woman is she?' " explained Tarar.

The literacy rate among women is barely five per cent, according to unofficial estimates.

For weeks prior to the election she pounded the pavement along with other activists trying to encourage women to stand for elections, but many were afraid.

She said they were threatened with divorce by their disgruntled husbands. Their was one report of a woman being killed by her husband after she refused to withdraw her candidacy.

Musharraf has promised to hold provincial and federal elections following these polls. He says democratic rule will be back in Pakistan by the end of 2002, this is also in keeping with an order from Pakistan's Supreme Court.

Early turnout at the polls in Sargodha was brisk, with one polling station reporting 125 of 900 voters marking their ballot within the first one hour.

Allah Rakhi, an elderly woman voting in a small village outside Sargodha, said she was the first to mark her ballot shortly after polls opened at 9 am (0400 GMT) local time.

"We have so many problems, we need so much here. We need clean drinking water, electricity is always a problem," she said. "Whoever we elect should help us. Everytime we hope.”