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Pakistanis began to vote Monday morning in parliamentary elections that are expected to diminish President Pervez Musharraf further and present Washington with a challenging new political lineup here as it pursues its fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the region.

The vote, which was delayed after the assassination of the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto nearly two months ago, comes amid anxiety of further political turmoil if the government manipulates the results or enters a battle with the opposition parties over forming a government.

At least four candidates, including Ms. Bhutto, and nearly 100 other Pakistanis have been killed during the campaign. Parties have reported kidnappings and arrests of candidates and attempts to intimidate their families, according to Sheila Fruman, director of the National Democratic Institute’s office in Pakistan. The opposition has threatened street protests if the vote is perceived to be unfair, but has also called for a government of national consensus.

American officials and others here hope that the election provides a fresh opportunity for a new civilian government to rally Pakistanis behind the fight against the militants who now threaten the security and stability of the country.

After growing frustration with eight years of military rule, opposition politicians and analysts argue that Mr. Musharraf has lost the support of the people and cannot fight extremism effectively without it.

With the country facing a growing insurgency by the Taliban and Al Qaeda, rising prices and escalating violence, the nationwide vote will now serve as a kind of referendum on Mr. Musharraf, who has grown deeply unpopular.

No matter which party prevails, Mr. Musharraf, who has been Washington’s partner in the campaign against terrorism for the past six years, is almost certain to emerge further reduced in the post-election skirmishing.

He is already much weakened after resigning as army chief in November, and a popularly elected prime minister with the backing of Parliament will emerge as a competitive new force.

The party that has supported Mr. Musharraf for the past five years, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, is expected to fare considerably worse than it did in the last election.

The party of Ms. Bhutto, the Pakistan Peoples Party, is riding a wave of sympathy after her death and may emerge as the largest party in Parliament, analysts say.

Ms. Bhutto’s party, which is now led by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, and the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan Muslim League-N, are moderate parties opposed to terrorism.

They argue that only a popularly elected government can bring the country together to oppose militancy. For his part, Mr. Zardari has also called for a government of national consensus after the election and has not ruled out working with Mr. Musharraf.

The insurgency remains at the top of the Bush administration’s agenda here, and American officials have started to prepare for Mr. Musharraf’s eventual exit. In a series of high-level visits in the past month on how to stem the militants’ efforts to destabilize Pakistan, Washington officials have focused on the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, an implicit recognition of the shifting balance of power.

Despite the complaints about violence in the campaign and the potential for fraud, the Bush administration has appeared determined to validate the election as a satisfactory exercise in democracy. Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, recently told a Congressional committee that he was looking for “as fair an election as possible.”

International observers, including several United States senators who arrived Sunday, have already warned of serious flaws in the pre-election process. They have said that at best the election would be deemed “credible,” rather than free and fair.

The biggest question will be to what extent the government apparatus will try to manipulate the results in favor of the pro-Musharraf party. If the elections are skewed too far in its favor, the government risks large protests and violence.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said after arriving in Lahore on Sunday night as an election observer that he was “mildly optimistic” that the election would be “fairly credible.”

But Mr. Biden said that if the election turned out to be seriously flawed, he would seek to curtail United States military aid to Pakistan. Two other members of the foreign relations committee, Senators Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, and John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, also arrived to observe the election.

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