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ISLAMABAD – After an election campaign darkened by violence and allegations of fraud, Pakistanis voted on Wednesday a new government facing the challenges of a faltering economy and the Bloodshed of the militants. Attack saw a kamikaze kill 31 people outside a polling station.
The official results declaring a winner outright were not expected until Thursday morning. However, early unofficial results gave Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) an edge over his main rival, Shahbaz Sharif's Muslim League of Pakistan.
Supporters of Jubilant Khan danced to the sound of the drums. party headquarters in Islamabad, feeling a victory. The sound of firecrackers echoed in the night sky
Sharif, the younger brother of disgraced Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was imprisoned on charges of corruption, challenged the election results even before they be announced. He accused the fraud and vowed not to accept the results, raising fears that disgruntled losers could delay the formation of the next government.
The parliamentary poll only marked the second time in the 71-year history of a civilian government another in the country of 200 million people. There were also widespread concerns during the election campaign about the manipulation by the military, which directly or indirectly directed the country for most of its existence. "We will sweep the elections," said Abdul Basit, a supporter of Khan.
A few hours after the opening of the polls, a motorcycle suicide bomber blew up his explosives in a crowd waiting to vote in Quetta, in the south-west of the country. In addition to the 31 dead, the attack wounded 35 people, said Dr. Jaffar Kakar, a hospital official. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but local officials promptly blamed the Islamic State group
. The attack perpetrated in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province, highlighted the difficulties faced the Muslim majority. Baluchistan also experienced the worst violence during this month's election campaign, when a suicide bomber unleashed a political rally, killing 149 people, including candidate Siraj Raisani. 400 others were injured. IS claimed responsibility for this attack. Baluchistan has been under constant attack by both secessionists in the province and Sunni militants who have killed hundreds of Shiites.
The army deployed 350,000 soldiers in the country's polling stations.
Moeed Yusuf, associate vice president of the Asia Center at the US-based Peace Institute, Washington, political violence is rare in Pakistan, while Wednesday's attack in Baluchistan seems to be the work of a terrorist group. "Terrorist violence is a totally different issue and affect political stability," Yusuf said. "Unfortunately, Pakistanis have suffered so much violence that they are desensitized."
Yusuf said the main challenge for the next government will be the economic crisis.
"The new government is going to be in an unenviable situation It is not the favorite prime minister of the two main traditional Pakistani bosses, China and the United States. "
Khan was a harsh critic of the US-led war in Afghanistan, as well as Khan's supporters showered his vehicle with rose petals while he was polluting near his home. In the capital of Islamabad, Electoral Commission spokesman Nadeem Qasim told The Associated Press that the commission had told Khan that his vote could be disqualified because he had Voting in front of the television cameras violated the constitutional provisions on the secrecy of the ballot paper Video footage showed a smiling Khan with his ballot in front of him as he marked it [19659015AurangzebofPakistan'sMuslimSharifLeagueraisedthefirstallegationsofelectoralfraudandwarnedthathissupporterscouldrevoltiftheaccusationsprovedcorrect
"We will not allow sounds to steal the mandate that the nation has entrusted to us ". press conference. "Up to now, we control our supporters, but we will not be able to convince them to exercise restraint if the results are manipulated against our party."
At the end of the vote, festive supporters of both parties gathered
The Pakistani Left People's Party, led by Bilawal Bhutto, the son of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, assassinated by the Pakistani Taliban, swore to eradicate the Party.
More than 11,000 candidates vie for 270 seats in the Pakistani National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, and 577 seats in four provincial assemblies. According to Pakistani law, separate seats are reserved for women and non-Muslim minorities, who make up 4% of the population.
The 85,307 polling stations were open for 10 hours, an hour more than in any other country. 2013. Vote for two parliamentary seats and six seats in provincial assemblies were postponed due to attacks against candidates or disqualifications. The final results are expected early Thursday
There are more than 105 million voters – 59 million men and 46 million women.
Election officials reminded candidates that their results would be nullified if women's participation rate did not reach 10%. The requirement was imposed after the 2013 elections, when several regions banned voting by women, primarily in religiously conservative North West. Some candidates won without a single woman marking a poll.
Rights activist Tahira Abdullah said on Tuesday that local jirgas, or councils, from 60 regions representing 16 different constituencies had signed agreements banning women from voting. Women voted for the first time Wednesday in North Waziristan, deeply tribal and religiously conservative, where the Taliban insurgents have taken refuge.
"We made history today," said Mohamad Ayaz Khan, a government administrator. "It's the first time women have come out of their homes to vote."
The vote is distributed by sex throughout Pakistan at each polling station.
The early vote was heavy in some places in Islamabad. the provincial capital of Punjab, with several political party leaders lining up to vote. Local television reported scattered incidents of police arresting people with pre-marked bulletins.
One concern is the unprecedented participation of radical religious groups, including those banned from links to terrorism but resurrected under different names. Jibran Nasir, an independent candidate from the Karachi Financial Center, said he had received death threats and even been the subject of a fatwa, or religious edict, against him. He had refused to condemn the Ahmadis, vilified by ordinary Muslims as heretics because they believed that the promised Messiah in Islam happened more than a century ago. In 1974, Pakistan declared that Ahmadis were non-Muslims.
International and national election observers will monitor the vote. The European Union Election Observation Mission has 120 observers in the main centers of Pakistan, with the exception of Baluchistan.
On Wednesday, supporters of two opposing political parties killed one person and injured two others in a village near the city of Swabi. . Later, other clashes between rival parties killed another person and wounded 15 others.
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Zarar Khan and B.K. Bangash in Islamabad; Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Balochistan; Zaheer Babar in Lahore; Adil Jawad in Karachi, Pakistan, and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This document may not be published, distributed, rewritten or redistributed.
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