Pak local polls rigged

Pro-Musharraf parties were claiming victory in Pakistan's first polls for three years, which opened on Thursday and were seen as a test of the military ruler's fight against Islamic hardliners.

Around half of Pakistan's 63-million-strong electorate was eligible to vote on Thursday. The other half will cast their ballots in the second phase of voting on August 25.

"Our fears that the elections would not be transparent came true, and the government broke all previous records for rigging," said Ghafoor Ahmed, deputy chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami fundamentalist party.

The Pakistan People's Party of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto said the elections for district councillors and mayors were a "farce" and rigging was widespread.

It had filed complaints with Pakistan's election commission but had little hope of justice because it was picked by the government, party spokesman Taj Haider told AFP.

"Our election agents were not allowed entry while bogus votes were polled at a number of women's polling stations," said Naveed Chaudhry, the party's spokesman in Pakistan's most populous province, Punjab.

But election commission chief Abdul Hameed Dogar denied there had been any fraud in the polls, likely to be the country's last before presidential elections expected in 2007.

"People took keen interest in polling and there was no complaint of rigging," Dogar was quoted as saying by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.

He put turnout at 50 percent but the opposition parties said it was much lower.

The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid and the ethnic-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which both back Musharraf, said they were ahead as votes continued to be tallied.

"Moderates have defeated the forces of darkness," senior MQM official Farooq Sattar told AFP, referring to the secular parties' performance against religious parties.

Officially, the elections are being held on a non-party basis to avoid political violence but in practice groups have openly backed candidates.

At least seven people were killed and 35 injured in election-related violence in North West Frontier Province, an Islamist-ruled region bordering Afghanistan, local officials said.

Three people were killed and 17 wounded in Bannu district while four people died and seven were hurt in a shootout at a winning candidate's rally in Nowshera town.

Some 500 protesters demanding the arrest of the attackers blocked the main road linking Nowshera with the rest of the country on Friday.

In Punjab, five people were killed in Multan, Gujranwala, Sialkot and Faisalabad districts. "By and large polling was peaceful. Violence was not widespread," Punjab home secretary Hassan Wasim Afzal told AFP.