Bhutto's widower takes vote battle to key province

By Kamran Haider

FAISALABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto's widower held his first rally in the election battleground province of Punjab on Thursday and urged people to fight for change and vote for Bhutto's party.

Asif Ali Zardari is leading Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party into a general election next Monday, knowing it will have to do well in Punjab if it is to have any chance of leading a government.

"I came to Punjab to save Pakistan, Bhutto's Pakistan," Zardari told a crowd of about 7,000 party supporters in the industrial city of Faisalabad.

The elections are for a new parliament which will form a government that will run the nuclear-armed U.S. ally with the increasingly unpopular president, Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf is not taking part in the elections but could face a challenge to his authority and even his position as president from a parliament dominated by opponents.

Zardari took over as co-chairman of Bhutto's party after she was assassinated in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi on December 27.

"Our struggle is for change," Zardari said. "We know the fight is difficult but I have faith in you ... Vote for the People's Party to save Pakistan."

Security for the rally was tight with everyone searched coming in and police marksmen posted on rooftops overlooking the rally ground.

Bhutto's party has been riding a wave of sympathy since her murder but analysts say Zardari is not as popular in Punjab as he is in his home province of Sindh, which was also Bhutto's home.

Zardari was plagued by allegations of corruption when he served as a minister in his wife's government. Bhutto was also accused of corruption.

"He is no match for her. He's unpopular among the masses because of the corruption allegations. He's still called 'Mr 10 percent'," said a college student attending the rally, Irfan Ahmed, referring to a nickname Zardari's critics used.

Punjab is vital to the election hopes of all three of the country's main parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League that backs Musharraf and the party of Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister former army chief Musharraf ousted in a 1999 coup.

The province is home to half of Pakistan's 160 million people and will elect about half of the members of the new parliament.

Zardari did not mention Musharraf in his speech but in a reference to the military and the civilian bureaucracy, said "the establishment" had to go.

The military has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 61 years of existence since it was created in 1947.