ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's perilous security situation is hindering campaigning for February 18 elections with politicians putting their lives at risk when they go out to seek votes, opposition leader Nawaz Sharif said on Wednesday.

Campaigning for the parliamentary vote, which is hoped will complete a transition to civilian rule and usher in stability, came to a halt last month when another opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, was killed.

She was assassinated in a gun and bomb attack as she left an election rally in Rawalpindi on December 27 and the polls, originally scheduled for January 8, were subsequently postponed.

"Elections are around the corner but what sort of an election campaign can one conduct? How can we go out?" Sharif told a news conference in Islamabad.

"We have been risking our lives and going out before ... but the situation today is more dangerous compared with before."

The government said Bhutto was killed by an al Qaeda-linked militant leader based in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border and has warned all politicians that they face a looming threat of attack.

The Interior Ministry said last week politicians should avoid unnecessary exposure in the run-up to the vote, keep travel plans unpredictable and avoid big rallies.

Sharif has become the most prominent opponent of President Pervez Musharraf, especially since the death of Bhutto.

Despite a mixed record during his two terms as prime minister in the 1990s, Sharif's party is expected to do well in the elections, partly because of his defiance of the increasingly unpopular Musharraf.

Sharif repeated a demand for Musharraf to step down, and for a neutral caretaker government and independent Election Commission to supervise the polls.

NO BOYCOTT

Sharif has been ruled ineligible for the election because of past criminal convictions he says were politically motivated.

Musharraf, who as army chief ousted Sharif in a bloodless 1999 coup, does not have his own party. The party that supports him and ruled under him is expected to fare poorly in the polls.

The elections are for a lower house of parliament, from where a prime minister and government will be drawn to govern with Musharraf, and assemblies in Pakistan's four provinces.

Sharif initially urged an opposition boycott of the vote but decided his party would take part after Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party refused to join a boycott.

He again spoke of his fears the vote would be rigged in favour of the party that supports Musharraf but ruled out a boycott, saying that would only leave the field open to Musharraf's allies.

"We are monitoring those who plan to rig the polls and will

make all efforts to fight it," he said.

Musharraf has dismissed opposition complaints of rigging and has promised the vote will be fair.

After the news conference, Sharif tried to visit deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry but police stopped him from approaching Chaudhry's house.

Chaudhry, seen as hostile to Musharraf, was dismissed after Musharraf imposed emergency rule on November 3 and has been under house arrest since then. The emergency was lifted on December 15.