Andrew Buncombe: Is there any hope of a fair election in Pakistan?

It would be fair to say that Gulrez Ahmed's expectations were not overly ambitious. Would the upcoming elections be fair, the shopkeeper was asked. To some extent, he shrugged, but not entirely. "Everyone is trying to manipulate. There is no perfect candidate."

Mr Ahmed's response was among the more measured encountered among the shopkeepers in the narrow, frenetic bazaar in the Pakistani city of Gujrat yesterday. Most looked back with utter disbelief when the question was put to them. What about the vote rigging and the intimidation of voters, they said, what about the switched ballot boxes and pressure put on candidates?

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This clearly didn't count as science, but as an insight into the situation currently confronting Pakistan, it was very telling; three days away from parliamentary elections that will have a crucial impact on the country's future, very few people here believe the vote is going to be fair. That is not to say the election is going to be rigged, but most people appear to think it will be.

President Pervez Musharraf – in whom the West has invested so much money and political capital as part of the so-called War on Terror – knows this all too well. Yesterday, as the shopkeepers of Gujrat were expressing their doubt-free views about what was going to happen, Pakistan's President was speaking with a similar certainty about the upcoming polls.

"Despite all rumours, insinuations and every type of apprehension, these elections will be free, fair, transparent and peaceful," he insisted in a televised address. "There will not be any change in the election schedule."

It is hard to overemphasise the importance attached to these elections, with so many people in Pakistan hoping they will represent a move towards democracy for a country that has experienced nine years of dictatorial rule by a man who seized power in a military coup. Even the president himself says he welcomes them insisting that, having stood down as head of the armed forces, he wants to continue with what he has termed as the final stage of a move to democracy. But, by itself, simply having the election is not enough. As obvious as it may sound, it is vital that Monday's ballot is held under fair conditions and that it be seen to be so. If it is not, the implications are extraordinarily depressing.

In the short-term, Pakistan can expect more civil unrest such as that which followed the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, or worse. Indeed, the leaders of the two main opposition parties, Ms Bhutto's widowed husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who heads the Pakistan's People's Party, and Nawaz Sharif, of the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), have both said their supporters will take to the streets if the election is not fair.

Mr Sharif – the former prime minister who was ousted by Mr Musharraf in 1999 – repeated this warning yesterday. Speaking at a rally of around 7,000 supporters in the northern city of Kahuta, Mr Sharif said there would be "uncontrollable" unrest if the election was unfair.

But beyond the rioting and clashes that would likely break out if it were to be declared that the party Mr Musharraf created – the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) – had won the most number of seats, there are even more serious implications for those concerned about Pakistan's future. If the momentum gathered by such protesters did not abate, and the president were forced to use increasing force to retain order, some analysts believe it is possible the military could step in and remove Mr Musharraf himself.

Some may dismiss this as too fanciful. After all, did not Mr Musharraf personally appoint his successor as head of the armed forces, General Ashfaq Kiyani? Yet many within the military establishment are unhappy with Mr Musharraf, and what they perceive as the way his actions over the last year have tarnished their reputation. Last month, a group of retired but influential military officers called on him to resign, saying it was in the "supreme national interest" that he step down. Few believe they would have spoken in such a way without approval of at least some of the serving senior brass.

Farzana Shaikh, of Chatham House, said: "If the elections are not perceived to free and fair ... I think we can be reasonably certain that there will be unrest on the streets that could easily escalate. It could force the army to make some difficult decisions – fire on demonstrators or prevail upon Musharraf to go? I think they would plump for the latter, and then possibly call new elections."

Ahead of the election, the Musharraf regime has been working hard to assure sceptics that everything will be transparent. Officials and diplomats have been handing out "fact sheets" detailing the voting processes involved, and arguing that the system has inbuilt safeguards to ensure fairness.

But many here believe it is already impossible for the elections to be considered fair. Human Rights Watch said the country's Election Commission – appointed by Mr Musharraf – had failed to investigate hundreds of allegations of irregularity, and that the commission's "lack of independence and impartiality is among the crucial structural issues impeding free and fair elections". Meanwhile, the ousted Supreme Court chief justice and his lawyer remain under house arrest, and the media remains banned from broadcasting political speeches live.

Many politicians from smaller parties, most notably Imran Khan, of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party, reached such a conclusion long ago and vowed not to participate. With no small irony, Mr Khan is busy on the campaign trail this week, urging voters to join his boycott.

Huge responsibility falls upon the opinion of the election's sole independent observers, a team from the EU. Anyone doubting the extent of such pressure – the pressure not to decide that an election organised by the West's "ally" are flawed – might consider the words of John Cushnahan, the former Irish MEP.

He headed the EU monitoring team that decided Pakistan's previous parliamentary elections in 2002 were "seriously flawed". It reached this conclusion, he told me from Limerick, despite pressure from a number of the member states to give the election a clean bill of health. He said he did not want to prejudge this year's election from such distance, but expected the same pressures would be exerted on it for "geopolitical reasons". "I have no doubt they will face similar pressures from certain countries... that if there are any deficiencies in this election, to ignore them."

In such circumstances, it is hard to see how the shop-keepers of Gujrat could have felt any different.

a.buncombe@independent.co.uk