[🇵🇰] Pakistan General Elections -- 2024

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General Elections 2024: polling ends as Pakistan marred by ‘disconnect’​

Pakistan voted in the country’s 12th General Elections under a bar on communication with mobile internet services disrupted and delays in the start of polling reported at several areas. Nearly 129 million Pakistanis were due to vote across 90,000 polling stations across the country amid hope that helping elect the 266 candidates would steer the country out of its current economic crisis.

Security concerns, already mounting in the face of rising terrorist attacks, were back on the forefront after the attack in Balochistan on Wednesday, and topped the list of government worries that resorted to its tried-and-tested formula of imposing a blackout on mobile internet connectivity.

The government deployed over 648,000 security personnel nationwide to ensure safety, but a drastically different political landscape played on the minds of voters.

 

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Pakistan elections 2024: Polls close in vote marred by internet cut​

By Yvette Tan, Caroline Davies and Simon Fraserin Singapore, Lahore and London

Polls have closed in Pakistan after the authorities suspended mobile calls and data while millions voted for a new government in a controversial election.

The interior ministry said incidents of terrorism made the measure necessary.

The election comes almost two years after the previous prime minister, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, was ousted in a no-confidence vote.

Three-time PM Nawaz Sharif was on the ballot in what many analysts say is Pakistan's least credible election yet.

Khan, jailed on corruption charges last year, is barred from standing and his party called the internet cut a "cowardly act".


It is unclear how soon results will be announced but they must be released within two weeks of election day.

Polling experts were already forecasting a low turnout, which it's thought would hamper the PTI's chances. The suspension of mobile services made it harder for voters to find their polling stations.

Both calls and data services were suspended just 10 minutes before voting started, although wifi networks still appeared to be working.

One voter told the BBC they were shocked at the decision, saying "voters should be facilitated instead of [having to be met with] such hurdles".

Another said she had been expecting a blanket shutdown.


Many voters in the city of Lahore told the BBC that the internet blackout meant it was not possible to book taxis to go and vote, while others said they couldn't chat to other family members to co-ordinate when to head to polling stations.

Justifying the move, an Interior Ministry spokesman said: "As a result of the recent incidents of terrorism in the country, precious lives have been lost. Security measures are essential to maintain law and order situation and to deal with potential threats."

Pakistan has a history of militant attacks but over voting day there were only isolated incidents of violence. In the worst, in Dera Ismail Khan in the north, four police officials were killed in a bomb attack on their vehicle. Several injuries were reported in blasts in south-western Balochistan province, but no casualties.

Two separate bomb attacks on candidates' offices in Balochistan killed at least 28 people on Wednesday.


The shutdown was also criticised by Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of murdered ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who called for services to be restored "immediately".

The country is on high alert, with a heavy security presence at polling stations across the country. One station in Lahore the BBC visited had armed guards at the entrance and army officers roaming around the area.

Border crossings with Afghanistan and Iran have been closed for both cargo and pedestrians to "ensure full security" during polling, a spokesman from Pakistan's foreign ministry said.

The country has in the past cut internet services to control the flow of information - though a shutdown of this extent is unprecedented, especially during an election.

Absolutely fair election: Nawaz Sharif​

Mr Sharif and his daughter Maryam voted in Icchra, Lahore on Thursday afternoon. Security was tight, with officers forming a ring around them and a jeep covered in antennas to jam phone signals.


Black cars lined the area as the pair entered the station.

When asked if he thought the election was free and fair, Mr Sharif said they were "absolutely fair".

Speaking to the BBC outside the polling station after casting his vote, he said he had "never had any problems with the military", perhaps forgetting he'd spent much of his long career at loggerheads with the generals.

Mr Sharif spoke of the "lack of civility, the arrogance, and this culture of disrupting and destroying the country", in an apparent reference to Pakistan under Imran Khan.

He said he and his family had gone to jail, "made sacrifices and now we are here witnessing this day". If his party wins, "people's lives will become easier, inflation will go down - this is what people want, this is their wish - and their wishes should come true", he added.

One polling station in Lahore had armed police guarding a government school
Outside one polling station in the city of Multan in Punjab, some female polling agents told the BBC they were not allowed to enter polling booths - and therefore could not observe the polling process.

Typically, female polling agents are given a seat inside booths.

In Lahore, dozens of voters crammed into the small corridors of a school in Naseerabad, with some saying they had been waiting for more than two hours to vote.

Rising violence and economic struggles​

As many as 128 million people are registered to cast their votes, almost half of whom are under the age of 35. More than 5,000 candidates - of whom just 313 are women - are contesting the 266 directly-elected seats in the 336-member National Assembly.


The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) and the PPP are considered the two major parties going into the vote.

However, picking out candidates from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party is more difficult, after it was banned from using the cricket bat symbol under which all its candidates run.

• Who is really pulling the strings in a divided Pakistan?
• A jailed star and former convict: Pakistan's election, explained

The move has forced PTI-backed candidates, who are running as independents, to use other symbols instead, including calculators, electric heaters and dice. Electoral symbols play a key role in a country where more than 40% are unable to read.

Symbols like polar bears and peacocks are on the ballot

The PTI allege other tactics have also been used to prevent their candidates from campaigning for and winning seats, including locking up PTI members and supporters and banning them from holding rallies, effectively forcing them underground.

Imran Khan is serving at least 14 years in prison, having been sentenced in three separate cases in the space of five days last week. The PTI alleges interference by Pakistan's powerful military, with whom Khan is said to have fallen out before his ousting and imprisonment.

But people were able to vote for Nawaz Sharif - the PML-N leader, who at the time of the last election was beginning a sentence for corruption.

The former PM was ousted in a 1999 military coup and had his third term cut short in 2017 - but he recently returned from self-imposed exile. He had his lifetime ban on holding office overturned, and also got his criminal record wiped clean at the end of last year, allowing him to stand for what would be a record fourth term.

Pakistan elections 2024: Polls close in vote marred by internet cut

Millions were voting in a new government amid soaring inflation, rising violence and rigging claims.

www.bbc.com

 

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