Asif Zardari hold election rally in Faisalabad

Описание: (14 Feb 2008)
1. Security officials searching people
2. Wide of security commandoes facing crowd with fence between them
3. Mid of security commando looking out at crowd
4. Various of people gathered for rally, some holding Pakistan People's Party (PPP) flags
5. Close up of poster with images of former PPP leader, Benazir Bhutto, and current PPP co-leader Asif Ali Zardari
6. Various of PPP supporters dancing to beating drums
7. Zardari arriving at rally
8. Various of crowd waving flags and chanting slogans
9. SOUNDBITE: (Urdu) Asif Ali Zardari, co-Chairman of Pakistan People's Party:
"If we have to live we will live like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. Otherwise we don't want such lives. Oh God! Give me freedom or death. We want freedom and we would have that at any cost. This is our right."
10. Crowd cheering, chanting slogans and waving flags
11. Zardari waving at crowd as he leaves stage
12. Wide of crowd cheering, chanting slogans and waving flags
STORYLINE:
Campaigning was well underway in the run up to Monday's parliamentary elections in Pakistan, with thousands turning out in the eastern city of Faisalabad on Thursday to hear opposition party leader Asif Ali Zardari speak.
Armed police and bodyguards ringed the stage, and snipers stood on rooftops.
A flak jacket appeared to bulge through Zardari's shawl as he told the crowd the party would keep up the fight against dictatorship.
"We want freedom and we would have that at any cost. This is our right," he told the cheering crowd from behind bullet-proof glass.
Zardari took over the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) after his wife, Benazir Bhutto, was killed.
Security fears surround next week's parliamentary elections as the country of 160 (m) million grapples with rising Islamic extremism, especially in northwest regions bordering Afghanistan.
Bhutto's assassination and a string of suicide bombings, some targeting campaign rallies, have been blamed on al-Qaida- or Taliban-linked militants.
Worried about violence, candidates have largely abstained from staging massive rallies, instead going door-to-door to drum up support or hanging banners along roadsides, though momentum has picked up in recent days.
In a country with low literacy and limited access to broadcast media - particularly among the vast rural population - such rallies have always been the mainstay of electioneering, bringing politicians in direct contact with their voters.
While the major parties have continued their public campaigning - albeit in a reduced fashion - others have withdrawn from the election altogether.
Some object to participating under the new judicial set up created when Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf sacked the country's chief justice and other high-profile, and sometimes challenging, lawyers.
Several senior independent-minded judges remain restricted to their homes.
With critics accusing Musharraf of planning to manipulate the vote in order to maintain his grip on power, the retired general said on Thursday the elections would be "free, fair transparent and peaceful."
In a televised speech four days before the crucial balloting, Musharraf said he was a firm believer in democracy, but not if it turned his nation into a failed state.
Musharraf's presidency is not being contested in Monday's parliamentary election.
But a convincing win by the opposition, as forecast in recent opinion polls, could leave him vulnerable to impeachment, eight years after he seized power in a bloodless coup.
That has sparked rumours the government could try to delay or rig the vote.

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