LAHORE, Oct 8: The lacklustre campaign, not comparable even to the one witnessed in last year’s local council elections, came to an end on Tuesday night with the pro and anti-regime parties making conflicting claims about their electoral performance on Thursday, when over 72 million voters will be electing their representatives through joint electorate system for 272 National and 577 provincial legislatures’ general seats.

The PML(N) held a rally in Lahore, which passing through various constituencies, ended at Shahdara, the area from where PML(Q) President, Mian Mohammad Azhar is a candidate on a National Assembly seat.

The PPP campaign had formally culminated Tuesday night when its chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, spoke to the newsmen and party leadership via satellite phone, telling them that the choice was between the generals and politicians. Elsewhere, it was Makhdoom Amin Fahim who addressed election-related meetings.

The PML(Q) President, Mian Mohammad Azhar confined himself to a few constituencies, two of his own, and one being contested by his brother, leaving the rest of the country at the disposal of the provincial presidents. The PML(Q) concluded its campaign with a public meeting at Shahdara, where he also finalized the election day strategy.

In  Punjab,  provincial president Chaudhry  Pervaiz  Elahi, conducted the party campaign as vigorously as Mian Nawaz Sharif had done for the 1997 elections.

Millat Party President Farooq Leghari addressed an election rally in NA-163 (Sahiwal).

The central leaders of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Aml addressed rallies across the country, hoping that  this time  their collective performance would be far better than they had shown in the past when they contested elections from their individual platforms.

In these elections the PML(QA) and parties in the National Alliance are on one side of the political divide  while the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy and the MMA on the other.

Analysts say there is a qualitative difference between the situation prevailing before the 1997 elections  and now. In 1997, the then president Farooq Leghari, who had dismissed the PPP government on various charges and his handpicked caretaker prime minister Malik Meraj Khalid were opposing the PPP tooth and nail and taking all possible steps to prevent the PPP’s return to power.

PML leader Ms Abida Hussain had played an important role in bringing Mian Nawaz Sharif and Mr Farooq Leghari closer to each other and the two had pledged to make concerted efforts to give a crushing defeat to the PPP.

Mr Nawaz had activated his supporters all over the country through a tireless campaign without waiting for the Supreme Court judgment on the PPP petition challenging the dismissal of the Benazir government.

The PPP, hoping that a miracle would take place and the apex court would reinstate the Benazir government just as it had restored that of Mian Nawaz Sharif in 1993, did not take much interest in the campaign. However, by the time the Supreme Court announced its verdict upholding the dismissal, the time to mobilize the masses was over.

In the 2002 elections, the situation is different as the PPP and the PML(N) are now allies on the ARD’s platform, although candidates of the two parties are also contesting against each on a large number of seats. Top leaders of the two parties are in exile — with no other charismatic leader in the field — and the regime  has  put  its entire weight  behind  the  PML(Q), notwithstanding its disclaimers.

No party is in a position to predict the possible reaction of voter to the initiative.

Another new factor in the Thursday elections is that many electable PPP and PML(N) leaders have crossed over to the PML(Q) and got tickets of what is called king’s party. Nobody is in a position to forecast whether supporters of such leaders would still stand by them or they would show their reaction by voting against them.

Equally difficult is to foretell the choice of the millions of youngsters enrolled for the first time or the performance of countless inexperienced new faces who are in the arena only because they happened to be graduates.

If the 1997 election results are made a basis to assess the voters’ trend, the results of the 2002 general elections will be quite unexpected and unpredictable.

In 1997, the PML had routed the PPP capturing 134 NA seats against only 18 by the latter. The results were rejected as bogus by the Musharraf regime when the SC was hearing a petition against the military takeover. But  in the local elections held last year, there  was substantial change as along with the government-backed PML(Q), the PPP, the PML(N) and the Jamaat also got sufficient seats.

The situation again changed at the time of the April 30 referendum when, if the results are accepted genuine, voters of all parties supported Gen Musharraf.