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Security fears shadow Pakistan party leaders

Ravi Velloor
HUGE explosions of crackers rent the air, booming from rooftops and the tower of a water tank that looms over this heartland town in Pakistan's all-important Punjab province. Nobody winces, much less looks up.
Such is the casual attitude that permeates the air as streams of people led by men carrying banners showing the tiger, the electoral symbol of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, approach the rally venue, a playground.
A 20m-wide area around the stage, where the candidates and party leader Nawaz Sharif are to speak, has been kept clear. Commandos with 'No Fear' painted on their jackets eye the crowd behind the barricades.
But that is about all.
Entry checks at the grounds are all too cursory. My PDA and tape recorder do not get noticed, much less checked. There is no jamming of cellphone signals, often used by terrorists these days to trigger remote bombs. My phone rang when I was onstage within handshaking distance from Sharif.
Sharif, a former prime minister, does not wear a bulletproof vest. His secretary' quips: "No politician can afford to look like a coward before his people."
But the security risk facing Pakistani politicians is all too real. On Dec 27, charismatic politician Benazir Bhutto was assassinated while campaigning in the garrison town of Rawalpindi outside the national capital Islamabad. Several
others have been killed since.
That's one reason why Jahangir Badar, secretary-general of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP), shows up unannounced for campaign walkabouts. It limits the crowds he can gather, but there is little choice.
Arriving in Lahore's famed Anarkali Bazaar to campaign, he plunged into the narrow alleyways and streets of the town's centre of commerce. Crowds began to build behind him, shouting his name. Shopkeepers pressed shawls and paintings on the 60-year-old former school boxer, a Bhutto family loyalist for four decades.
As his procession wound its way through the market, a woman was heard ordering her daughter off the street with the warning, "What if a suicide bomber should be around?"
Other women were seen sobbing as they chanted the Bhutto name. Badar appears set for an easy passage and opinion polls are predicting a big win for the PPP
Past midnight, Badar is home with his family, a masseur giving his aching legs a rub.
"Every night he is back, we count our blessings," said his son Jehanzeb, who runs a marketing company in Lahore.
Nawaz Sharif, meanwhile, is aware of the deep sympathy for Bhutto's party even in his traditional stronghold of Punjab. He was in Chakwal to back its national assembly candidate Ayaz Amir, Pakistan’s famed columnist and television personality.
He need not have bothered, as the sitting candidate, who belongs
to the party that backs President Pervez Musharraf, has declined renomination. Plus, he is campaigning for Amir — testimony to the President's eroding popularity.
The cricket-loving Sharif’s speeches can be as punchy as his hard-hitting batting style.
Most of his barbs are targeted at President Musharraf, whom he tried to fire as army chief in 1999, leading to a coup in which Sharif himself lose power; followed by exile. 'What kind of man is this,’ who takes his orders from the US Secretary of State, and that too a woman," he stormed, referring to President Musharraf and Condoleezza Rice.
He also referred to scientist Dr AQ Khan, seen as the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, who was placed under house arrest for his proliferation activities. "In India they made the father of their bomb the national president," he said in a reference to rocket scientist APJ Abdul Kal am.
"Here, our Dr Khan was forced by Musharraf to apologise to the nation. I say, leave him alone!"
Speech over, he steps off the stage and into a waiting Toyota Land Cruiser. The engine hums to life, escort cars move ahead, an ambulance follows.
Amir is mobbed as he turns to return to his ancestral home in the Chakwal bazaar. Though he is standing on a ticket issued by Sharifs party, Amir remains sceptical of him and other politicians.
"This is the best leadership we can offer," he shrugs expressively’.
©The Straits Times AD rights reserved Reprinted by arrangement with Asa News Network.