ISLAMABAD, Dec 11: With boycott talk out of the way, former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif have taken a plunge to fire up their parties’ election campaigns, against both natural and man-made odds.

As it became clear who will contest and who will stay away from the Jan 8 elections for the National Assembly and four provincial assemblies, both the country’s most popular leaders chose different provinces to launch their campaigns with big rallies, leaving political casualties among both friends and foes.

While two big opposition alliances practically broke up in the past two days as smaller parties and pressure groups failed to persuade the main players to boycott the vote that they fear will be rigged, the presence of the two charismatic politicians in the fray could also cause unease in the erstwhile ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) for fear of possible defection of some of its candidates.

It had been a dull affair until Mr Sharif ended the suspense about the threatened boycott by telling the All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) on Sunday that his Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) will not leave the field clear for the PML or for Ms Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

But the atmosphere changed dramatically as he lost no time and began the campaign the next day by addressing a rally in Faisalabad, leaving his pro-boycott allies with no option but to expel the PML-N along with the Awami National Party and another smaller group from what was Mr Sharif’s own brainchild.

The next casualty was the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), which also virtually broke up as the Jamaat-i-Islami, whose chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed is also the alliance president, stuck to the APDM’s boycott camp while its main component, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, refused to change its position in favour of fighting the elections.

As if she was waiting for the break-up of the two alliances she did not like, Ms Bhutto returned on Tuesday from a brief visit to Dubai, praising the PML-N’s shift to her thinking, and immediately went to Mardan in the NWFP to address her first election rally there.

The PPP and PML-N decisions disappointed not only some of their political allies but also many in the civil society such as lawyers who wanted some pre-conditions to be met, such as the restoration of about 60 judges of the Supreme Court and the four provincial high courts who were sacked with the imposition of emergency by President Pervez Musharraf on Nov 3.

But political analysts said the leaders of the two parties, whom President Musharraf had sidelined in the 2002 elections, were playing realpolitik while keeping the option open to bring their supporters onto the streets to agitate if the authorities repeated the 2002 rigging.

While it is likely to heat up in the coming days, the campaign will miss the traditional political processions, which the political parties have used in the past to mobilise and demonstrate public support for themselves.

The authorities have cited security concerns and law and order as grounds for banning the processions, but opposition parties say the real aim is to deny the mainstream parties to make a big show of force that could influence the voting pattern.

On the other hand, the PML and its allies, which lack the presence of crowd-pulling charismatic figures to match Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif, have no objection to these restrictions.

These parties, according to their critics, are likely to depend greatly on support from local government institutions dominated by their nazims as are the interim governments at the centre and the four provinces.

The cold winter, particularly in northern Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan, and shorter December-January days, will also mean less daytime available for campaigning.

Ms Bhutto’s campaign will particularly be hit by security concerns in view of what happened in Karachi on Oct 18 on her return from more than eight years of self-exile when a bomb attack on her procession killed about 150 people.

Though the PPP was reluctant to announce a detailed campaign programme, party sources said Ms Bhutto would tour the interior Sindh province next week with towns for rallies including Hyderabad (Dec 17), Mirpurkhas (Dec 18), Nawabshah (Dec 19) and Larkana (Dec 23).

She will address a rally at Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh on Dec 27 and one in Karachi on Dec 30, with her last campaign rally to be in Lahore on Jan 6, the sources said.

PML-N sources said Mr Sharif would proceed to Sialkot on Wednesday and was likely to go to Sindh next week.