Pakistanis Vote

The Toronto Star:

Despite exchanges of gunfire, a polling station hit by a rocket from militants, and the death of at least eight activists from the late Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party, millions turned out for what was being touted as the most important poll in Pakistan's history.

At the end:

An elderly, bearded man angrily addressed a Western reporter in the Raja Bazaar yesterday, decrying America's support for Musharraf. He was especially angered, he said, by events that had taken place in July at the Red Mosque in Islamabad.

Pakistani government forces led an attack on the mosque which, it said, had become a centre for Islamist militants and radical clerics.

"Your governments support that man (Musharraf), that butcher," the man said. "And hundreds were killed. Innocent children were killed."

Sharif has criticized the attack for the number of innocent people killed.

The man said Sharif "is his own man. He won't be dictated to by outside forces."

He'll follow the Islamists, instead.