Opposition calls for Pakistan leader's resignation

Associated Press WriterISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistanis voted Tuesday on whether to give military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf five more years as president, with the main opposition coming from vocal opponents to his crackdown on Islamic militants and backing for the U.S. war on terrorism.

With 9,578 votes counted from 21 polling stations nearly five hours after polls closed at 7 p.m. local time, 9,280 ballots supported extending Musharraf's term. Only 203 were against. The rest were ruled invalid.

Final results were not expected before Wednesday.

Musharraf is expected to win despite boycott calls from most of the main political parties, but he was hoping for a high turnout that would lend him a stamp of legitimacy. The government-run Electoral Commission relaxed voting rules and set up an unprecedented 87,000 polling stations -- some of them in novel places such as gas stations, hospitals and prisons.

But with Pakistan's Information Minister Nisar Memon predicting a 25 percent turnout as polls closed, opposition parties asked Musharraf to step down immediately and predicted the "lowest-ever turnout."

"We are thankful to the people of Pakistan for boycotting Musharraf's sham referendum," Qazi Hussain Ahmad, leader of the country's largest Islamic group Jamaat-e-Islami, said in a statement.

Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, head of the 15-party Alliance for Restoration of Democracy, said the low turnout was the "verdict of the people" against Musharraf and the president should accept it and resign.

Musharraf seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1999. The Supreme Court endorsed him but gave him three years to introduce reforms and return the country to democracy.

Musharraf called the referendum to extend his presidency before that deadline comes up in October, when the first parliamentary elections since the coup are scheduled to be held.

Under Pakistan's constitution, parliament chooses the president, but Musharraf is trying to circumvent that rule by winning a mandate for another five years at the helm -- time he says he needs to ensure the continuity of economic reforms, battle deeply rooted corruption and boost efforts to fight religious extremism.

That mandate could also boost him in his policy of supporting the U.S.-led campaign in neighboring Afghanistan. Musharraf turned Pakistan away from being the closest ally of the former ruling Taliban to being a key backer of the United States. The switch has outraged Islamic hardline groups.

In Pakistan's deeply conservative southwestern Baluchistan province, Islamic groups called for a strike and boycott. Religious leaders said their call was heeded.

"The strike in Baluchistan was so successful that most of the polling stations in the province remained deserted throughout the day," Maulana Fazle ur-Rehman, a prominent pro-Taliban cleric, said in a statement.

Wearing a cream-colored T-shirt and slacks, Musharraf cast his vote just after noon with his wife and mother at a women's university in an army compound in Rawalpindi.

"I am very confident," he said after joking that he had voted no. "I am feeling relaxed because of what I've seen on television and the reports I've received."

With the backing of leading business groups, scores of trade unions and some political parties -- as well as the powerful military -- analysts said Musharraf was almost certain to succeed.

But opponents were banking on a low turnout.

"If people boycott the referendum, it means he has lost," said a statement by exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who leads the Pakistan People's Party. It was issued from New York and printed in many Pakistani newspapers. Bhutto has been living abroad since she was ousted amid accusations of corruption and misrule in 1997.

Turnout appeared brisk in Islamabad and Lahore, but light in Karachi, the largest city and stronghold of the United National Movement, which joined the boycott call to protest the killing of its two leaders by unidentified gunmen last week.

More than 60 million people were eligible to vote. Turnout was only about 35 percent in the last parliamentary elections, in 1997.