Pakistani lawyers campaign for poll boycott

LAHORE (Reuters) - A group of Pakistan lawyers said on Friday they would campaign outside polling stations to try to persuade voters to boycott the February 18 election in protest at the imprisonment of judges and lawyers.

Pakistan's parliamentary election is seen as key to bringing stability to the nuclear-armed state following months of political turmoil which began when President Pervez Musharraf tried to sack the country's top judge in March last year.

Lawyers launched a series of nationwide protests against the move, widely backed by opposition parties and ordinary people. Hundreds of lawyers were later jailed for short periods.

"We will set up camps outside the polling station to dissuade voters from the process," said Ghulam Nabi Bhatti, vice-president of Pakistan's Supreme Court Bar Association.

He said lawyers had been holding a series of meetings and distributing flyers and pamphlets to convince people not to vote.

Bhatti said a free and fair election was impossible while Iftikhar Chaudhry, the chief justice Musharraf removed, and several other judges were still under house arrest.

Musharraf imposed six weeks of emergency rule in November last year and sacked Chaudhry and the other judges who were seen as hostile to his eventually successful bid to be re-elected as president.

While Musharraf himself is not contesting the election, the opposition have warned of possible irregularities in the poll which may benefit the party which backs the president.

Pakistan's two main opposition parties are contesting the election, but a number of smaller groups have stayed out of the poll and are calling for a mass boycott.

(Reporting by Kamran Haider; Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Jerry Norton)