Lara Vilallon
Updated Thursday, February 8, 2024-9:16 p.m.
Violence and accusations of fraud have marred the
parliamentary elections in Pakistan
, in which 100 million citizens were called to the polls in a vote whose result has little room for surprises. Polls indicate that the most voted party will be that of former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. The leader of the Pakistan Muslim League party has the approval of the army, which is presumed to run the country in the shadows. Sharif returned from self-exile to Pakistan just four months ago and remains popular in the country's most populated provinces, where his party has promoted major
infrastructure projects
.
Voting day began under
intense police deployment,
after
30 people were killed in two attacks
on political headquarters in the western province of
Balochistan
on Wednesday
. A few hours after the polling stations opened,
five police officers deployed
to control the vote
were killed in a bomb attack
in the Kulachi district, in the northwest of the country. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but the area is a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, who have carried out multiple attacks on security forces.
Further north,
gunmen fired on troops in the town of Kot Azam
,
killing one soldier
. Six other members of the security forces have died in attacks this Thursday, according to the army, which did not provide further details of the incidents.
On the other hand, in the province of
Balochistan
, where Wednesday's attacks occurred, unidentified assailants
threw hand grenades at two polling stations
, without causing any victims.
While voters headed to the polls, the
Ministry of the Interior suspended mobile phone services
, ensuring that the measure responded to a security issue. "As a result of the recent terrorist incidents in the country, valuable lives have been lost. Security measures are essential to maintain law and order and deal with potential threats," the ministry said in a statement.
Speaking to the BBC, several voters complained that due to the telephone blackout
they could not order taxis
to go to vote or coordinate with their families to
find out which polling station they had to go to
. Most political parties condemned the suspension of mobile services, calling the measure an attempt to rig the electoral process.
Khan, the absentee from these elections
"It is a cowardly move by those in power to manipulate the outcome of the elections by cutting off the media and the flow of information," said the Pakistan Justice Movement (PTI), the party of the popular former prime minister. Minister
Imran Khan
.
"This is not democracy, this
is tyranny disguised as governance
," they said. The former cricket star has been the big absentee from these elections, after being removed from politics with a mountain of court cases. He has recently been sentenced to 10 and 14 years in prison and disqualified for a decade.
Khan claims that his conviction is a plot by the Pakistani authorities and the United States to remove him from power. The former prime minister was deposed by a motion of no confidence in April 2022 and arrested a year later, a court decision that caused serious riots across the country, with followers protesting his imprisonment.
The PTI denounced that the electoral authority
did not allow other party figures to run
for election and assured that they suffered media censorship during the campaign. During election day they announced that one of their observers had been kidnapped, information that could not be verified by independent media.
Supporters of Khan and his party took to the streets during the vote counting, in an attempt to avoid possible electoral fraud. Pro-Khan media assured that preliminary results reveal a victory for independent candidates aligned with his party.
The communications blackout was also criticized by Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari's Pakistan People's Party, the only leader with a chance to confront Nawaz Sharif's party. Bhutto-Zardari is the son of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and although his party is a traditional rival of Sharif, they are expected to reach a government agreement.
The vote has also been marked by
low participation
. Analysts believe that it is due to multiple factors, from the political disqualification of the most popular leader, to distrust in institutions or insecurity due to the attacks in which the country lives, which caused more than 1,000 victims in 2023.