Islamabad: Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, a close confidante of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, was trailing in a prestigious seat in Rawalpindi during initial trends as counting report counting of votes was underway in Pakistan General elections.
Ruling PML-Q's Rasheed, a seven-time winner from his constituency and a former railway minister in the Musharraf government, is trailing PML-N's Javed Hashmi in one of the two seats in Rawalpindi.
Even the news of Rasheed trailing prompted celebrations by PPP and PML-N workers.
Rasheed has never lost in his constituency before despite aligning with different political parties in the past. Counting trends were not available in other constituencies.
Zubaida Jalal, a former minister in Musharraf's cabinet, was declared defeated, according to one of the first unofficial results reported by TV channels.
Musharraf aides trail
While the Election Commission is yet to officially announce the turnout or any of the results, the initial trends do not augur well for Musharraf.
Initial reports showed mixed trends with Pakistan People's Party (PPP)and Nawaz Sharif's PML(N) doing well in Sindh and Punjab respectively. Muttahida Quami Movement(MQM) was faring well in Karachi, early trends showed.
Sharif told an Indian TV channel that he was happy with the election trends.
Yaqub Bizenjo, who belongs to the Balochistan National Party-Awami, defeated Jalal. Jalal was education minister during Musharraf's three-year rule during 1999-2001. She was appointed education minister and later minister for social welfare after the 2002 parliamentary elections.
She had contested elections as an independent candidate for the National Assembly seat of Kech-Gwadar in southwestern Balochistan province.
Ruling PML-Q's Rasheed, a seven-time winner from his constituency and a former railway minister in the Musharraf government, lost to PML-N's Javed Hashmi in one of the two prestigious seats in Rawalpindi.
According to other unofficial results aired by the TV channels, PPP's Najmuddin Khan won from Dir district in the North West Frontier Province.
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Fatima accuses PPP of rigging
Slain Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto's niece Fatima Bhutto has accused her aunt's party of carrying out massive rigging in some polling stations of Larkana in Sindh province.
Fatima, the daughter of late Mir Murtaza Bhutto – brother of Benazir, forced the closure of voting for around two hours at a polling station in Larkana over the alleged rigging by Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
Waving the voters' list, Fatima claimed that most of the names did not have their national identity card numbers on the list and this was nothing but "plain rigging".
Sindh province is the stronghold of PPP, which is expected to sweep the polls.
Fatima claimed the PPP was trying to ride on a wave of sympathy following the killing of Benazir and was not following election rules.
How Pakistan voted
Counting of ballots started soon after an estimated 35 to 40 per cent of an eligible 80 million voters exercised their franchise held under the shadow of violence and fears of rigging. People generally preferred to stay indoors apprehending violence.
Counting began at the polling stations itself after voting ended at 5:30 IST. At least six people were killed in Punjab province, the political heartland of Pakistan, in political clashes.
Polling was held in Pakistan's four provinces of Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan and North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and seven restive tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan to choose 272 members of the National Assembly or lower house of Parliament and 728 members of provincial assemblies for a five-year term.
Another 60 seats in the National assembly are reserved for women and 10 for minorities. Musharraf has described the elections as "Mother of all elections."
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