Pakistan goes to the polls on Monday, with President Pervez Musharraf's allies seeking to win another term in office in the face of stiff competition from opposition parties. Here are short profiles of the major figures:
ASIF ALI ZARDARI: The husband of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, 51, has gone from playboy to villain and now to political widower and effective leader of the Pakistan People's Party.
Nicknamed "Mr Ten Percent" by Pakistanis because of allegations about kickbacks during his wife's time in power, he is not standing as a candidate in the elections but has stepped up to the plate following Benazir's death.
Zardari was the little-known scion of a land-owning polo-playing family from Nawabshah, when he married into the Bhutto political dynasty in 1987.
He carved out an influential position under his wife's two tenures in power but spent eight years in jail after the dismissal of her second government in 1996.
He was freed in November 2004 after being cleared over the last of 17 cases of corruption, murder and drug smuggling. One of the charges related to the killing of his wife's brother, Murtaza, in a clash with police in 1996.
Benazir named him as her political heir in a will written before she returned to Pakistan from exile in October 2007. He handed the leadership of the PPP to their son, Bilawal, but is effectively running the party until the 19-year-old has finished his studies at Oxford University.
He has pledged to complete his wife's "mission" for democracy.
NAWAZ SHARIF: Former premier Nawaz Sharif, 57, who heads the Pakistan Muslim League-N party, is a former industrialist who entered politics a quarter of a century ago under the wing of the army. He was disqualified as a candidate for the elections but is still on the campaign trail.
He still maintains a power base, especially in his native Punjab province, but alienated many Pakistanis by his one-time plans to introduce Islamic sharia law and declare himself "Commander of the Faithful." His family had a longstanding enmity with Benazir's father, late premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, because he nationalised the industries of Sharif's father.
As a result, late military dictator Zia-ul-Haq - who had Zulfiqar Bhutto executed in 1977 - handpicked him as Punjab's youngest ever finance minister in 1981.
Sharif won elections for prime minister after Benazir Bhutto's dismissal in 1990 but three years later he was sacked on corruption charges. Sharif bounced back to the premiership in 1996 after Benazir's second dismissal.
In 1998 Sharif appointed General Pervez Musharraf as army chief but relations soured over a skirmish with nuclear-armed rival India in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
Suspecting that Musharraf was planning his overthrow, he tried to sack him while the army leader was in mid-air on a flight from Sri Lanka. The army moved quickly, however, ending Sharif's rule in a bloodless coup. Sharif was exiled to Saudi Arabia in 2000.
He returned to Pakistan to a huge welcome in late 2007 and agreed to work with Benazir. Despite their earlier differences, he spoke out strongly against her assassination and originally announced a boycott of elections in protest.
CHAUDHRY PERVAIZ ELAHI: A close ally of President Pervez Musharraf and key member of the former ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the 60-year-old Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi is tipped to be prime minister if the party returns to power.
An industrialist from the dusty town of Gujrat with a reputation as a master political wheeler-dealer, he was until November the chief minister of Punjab.
Hailing from the powerful Chaudhry political clan - his uncle is the chief of the PML-Q - he provided Musharraf with the political support the former army general needed to run the country for the past five years.
An avowed political enemy of Benazir, Elahi was one of several establishment people the former premier named as plotting against her, an accusation he has denied.
Elahi rose from grassroots local government politics to become a minister in 1990 and then speaker of the Punjab Assembly in 1997, under the wing of Sharif.
Like many of Pakistan's political dynasties, the Chaudhries have been accused of - and deny - financial corruption, in their case to build their industrial empire.
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