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.