Federal and provincial lawmakers Saturday started casting votes in the presidential election that General Pervez Musharraf will surely win, parliamentary officials said. The legislators of the main opposition alliance, the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM), handed down their resignations from the parliament last week to protest Musharraf s candidacy in military uniform. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto s Pakistan People s Party (PPP) lawmakers decided to abstain from the voting at the last minute although they had put up Makhdoom Amin Fahim as their presidential candidate. The third candidate, Justice (retd) Wajihuddin Ahmed, has been fielded by the lawyers community. In the light of the Supreme Court ruling of Friday, the result of the presidential poll would not be officially notified till the disposal of a petition in which Musharraf s candidature has been challenged. However, there is no bar on announcement of the unofficial result. Tight security measures were taken in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar where voting was held in the two chambers of the federal parliament and the four provincial assemblies. The APDM had given a call for protest against Musharraf s candidacy in the presidential poll. In Peshawar, a group of protesting lawyers showed torch to an armoured personnel carrier. In Karachi, there were some disturbances in its Nazimabad area.
