Desperate Pakistanis long for action on problems

By Kamran Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Fed up with incessant political wrangling and stunned by a vicious tide of violence, Pakistanis say they want their newly elected president to get down to solving problems.

As expected, Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, swept an election by legislators on Saturday to replace the unpopular Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last month under threat of impeachment.

"My worries are terrorism and rising prices, not the politics," said Nighat Anis, a retired teacher in Islamabad.

"Our children are either becoming militants, suicide bombers or victims of terrorist attacks. We want an end to it. If he does it, the whole nation will support him."

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is on the front line of the U.S.-led campaign against militancy.

An impatient United States is intensifying its efforts to kill militants in Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun territory on the Afghan border, while the militants are responding with ever more deadly strikes against the Pakistani security forces.

As members of parliament were voting on Saturday, a suicide car-bomber killed 30 people in an attack on police in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

But many people see Pakistan's support for the U.S.-led campaign, which Zardari has vowed to uphold, as the cause of the blood letting.

"We're going to see more bloodshed because he looks like a U.S. ally, just like General Musharraf," said Noor Ali, a fruit vendor in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, a militant hot spot on the Afghan border.

"Tell him we don't want any more fighting. We want peace."

Wana shopkeeper Gulzar Wazir wanted the militants out.

"His rule would be best if he brought back peace and solved the Taliban problem, cleared the dirt from our land once and for all," Wazir said.

"BREAD, CLOTHING AND SHELTER"

Elsewhere, inflation, running at about 25 percent, is the most pressing problems.

"Their politics doesn't feed us or our children," said Neelam Khan, a doctor in the eastern city of Multan.