Pakistan's former leader Nawaz Sharif warns of anti-government protests if vote is rigged

Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif warned the government Sunday against rigging the country's parliamentary elections, saying his party would launch massive protests if there was cheating in the vote.

"If there is rigging, a countrywide movement will be carried out from which those rigging it will not be able to escape," Sharif told reporters at his home in the eastern city of Lahore, also his political power base, ahead of Monday's elections.

Sharif's comments came amid widespread accusations by opposition groups that the vote would be rigged in favor of the ruling party that backs President Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf has promised the country's 80 million voters a free and fair election.

Musharraf toppled Sharif as prime minister in a bloodless coup in 1999 and sent Sharif into exile.

Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (Nawaz) party, returned home in November to challenge Musharraf but has been barred from elections due to criminal conviction in cases relating to the coup.

Sharif indicated his party may rejoin other anti-Musharraf groups that are boycotting the election if there is massive fraud.

"We are not much away from those parties which have not taken part in the election. We will also take them along," Sharif said of the anti-election coalition.

He said if the opposition fares well, his party may join a coalition government with the party of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, once Sharif's bitter political rival.

He said "all democratic forces" will sit together a day after the elections to discuss formation of any future government.

"All democratic forces have concluded that they should join hands to get rid of dictatorship ... We also have no problem with sitting with any democratic force to form a government," he said about his meeting a day earlier with Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower who now leads her party.

Sharif ruled out working with Musharraf or the pro-Musharraf ruling party.

"Our agenda and that of Musharraf is poles apart. We believe in democracy and he is a dictator," he said.

Sharif urged the United States not to support Musharraf, saying the retired army general "is guilty of subverting the constitution, sacking the judiciary ... and imposing martial law."

"That is giving rise to anti-American feelings in Pakistan. That is not good for both the countries," he said.

The question of how Pakistan should fight Islamic extremism should be decided by the future Parliament, Sharif said.