ISLAMABAD - PAKISTANI election candidates launched a final push for votes on Saturday, after a US lawmaker warned that Washington could cut military aid if next week's polls are not free and fair.

Campaigning ends at midnight (3am Sunday Singapore time) on Saturday and all meetings and processions are banned from then until after Monday's landmark vote, seen as decisive for the political future of President Pervez Musharraf.

Mr Musharraf's allies - the former ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q - as well as the opposition party of slain ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto and supporters of two-time premier Nawaz Sharif are all set to rally.

Ms Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, will be in the eastern city of Lahore and is likely to attend a seminar by a regional media association before meeting party delegations, senior party official Naveed Qamar said.

Mr Sharif has not planned any public meetings but may address a rally in Lahore, his spokesman Zaem Qadir said.

An opposition alliance that is boycotting the vote, including the party of former cricketer Imran Khan and hardline Islamic organisations, is set to hold a meeting at the Pakistan monument ground in the same city.

Campaigning has however been mostly lacklustre in the leadup to the election, due partly to a wave of suicide attacks, most notably the one that killed Ms Bhutto at a political rally on Dec 27.

Opposition allegations of widespread rigging in favour of Mr Musharraf's allies have also left the country's 81 million eligible voters feeling disenfranchised.

Aid to be cut if vote is unfair
A senior US senator in a Congressional team travelling to monitor the polls said late on Friday that the United States should cut off military aid to Pakistan if the vote is not fair.

Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, who is head of the influential Senate foreign relations committee, also forecast riots throughout Pakistan if the elections were found to be 'patently rigged.'

Asked what would be the consequences of unfair elections, he said: 'I would move to cut off aid to Pakistan, military aid.'

He specifically cited the sale of F-16 fighter jets and P3 long-range maritime surveillance aircraft.

Mr Musharraf, who has received US$10 billion (S$14.3 billion) in US aid since 2001, pledged on Thursday that the elections would be fair but warned opposition groups not to protest against the result if they did not accept it.

But a fresh row erupted over the fairness of the polls on Friday after Human Rights Watch said it had obtained a recording of Pakistan's attorney general predicting the vote will be 'massively rigged.'

Attorney General Malik Qayyum, a close ally of Musharraf, said the allegation was 'ridiculous... a conspiracy against Pakistan' and denied making the comment.

'I have never uttered these words,' Mr Qayyum said.

The US-based group said that in the audio recording Mr Qayyum appeared to be advising an unidentified person on what party the person should approach to become a candidate in the parliamentary poll.

'They will massively rig to get their own people to win. If you can get a ticket from these guys, take it,' the voice on the recording says in Urdu, without identifying who would do the rigging. -- AFP