ISLAMABAD, Feb 8 As only nine days were left on Friday for the Feb 18 elections, political parties seemed facing a tough job to hot up a dull campaign against an unusually cold spell, dangers of violence and a state of uncertainty.

What was originally designed to be a brief campaign period turned fairly long and lost momentum after the polling date was postponed from Jan 8 for 40 days in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto`s Dec 27 assassination.

The countrywide `chehlum` gatherings of the Pakistan People`s Party (PPP) on Thursday to mark the end of 40 days of mourning for its leader set the stage for a stepped up activity by all contesting parties to woo voters to their political agendas.

But political sources said it would not be an easy task because of the prolonged and the country`s worst cold spell in decades, fears of militant violence that took Ms Bhutto`s life while she was campaigning and a lingering feeling of uncertainty about the election process itself.

While weather pundits have predicted the cold spell could persist for more days, there is hardly any encouragement from political pundits as well owing to the lack of credibility in the government reflected in doubts about repeated assurances by President Pervez Musharraf, his hand-picked interim government and the Election Commission that there would be no more election postponement and the vote would not be rigged.

Militant violence such as suicide bombings has continued despite government claims of successes to check the trend.

The PPP and the other major opposition party - the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) - had seen the vote postponement from Jan 8 to Feb 18 as designed primarily to benefit the formerly ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) by letting a pro-PPP sympathy sparked by Ms Bhutto`s assassination subside.

Some abatement of that sentiment might have happened, but the PML-Q, in the meanwhile, faced the backlash of a new wave of inflation amid food, power and gas shortages blamed on five years of its government that completed its five-year term on Nov 15 and an interim government led by its loyalists.

With political observers predicting things being still difficult for the PML-Q even its main bastion of the Punjab province, a general feeling persisted the government might put off the elections again or rig them to deny the opposition parties a parliamentary majority that could upset the Musharraf presidency and its sweeping powers.

But despite practical and psychological obstacles, political sources said the campaign is likely to pick up after PPP announced a programme of public rallies by its new co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari immediately after the `chehlum` ceremony of his wife at Garhi Khuda Bux in Sindh province and the likely matching response from other parties.

VOTE COUNT LISTS Meanwhile, the Election Commission, which has been under fire from opposition parties for its alleged failure to meet their concerns, on Thursday sought to allay one of them about provision of count of votes to the agents of contestants at the end of polling at a polling station.

A commission statement quoted a spokesman as drawing attention of presiding officers to the provision of sub-para 11 of section 38 of the Representation of the People`s Act, 1976, which says “The presiding officer shall give a certified copy of the statement of the count and the ballot paper account to such of the candidates, their election agents or polling agents as may be present and obtain a receipt for such copy.”