Islamabad, Feb 7 (EFE).- Pakistanis are set to vote in general elections amid escalating violence, deepening polarization, and economic instability, with dozens dead in twin blasts on the eve of the polls on Wednesday.
On Thursday, 128 million Pakistani voters will cast their ballots for new national and regional assemblies against a backdrop of deadly bombings and heightened political tensions.
Dozens of people were killed and many more injured in two bombings on Wednesday near the election offices of candidates in the restive Balochistan province, a region plagued by decades of separatist insurgency.
A third blast targeting a vehicle belonging to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) opposition party in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa wounded at least five people.
In addition to escalating militant attacks, the nuclear-powered South Asian nation of 241 million people faces mounting challenges of economic uncertainty, political instability, and erosion of fledgling democratic institutions due to the military’s frequent tacit political interventions, along with a climate crisis.
The charismatic cricketer-turned-politician, Imran Khan, 71, has been imprisoned after multiple convictions on various charges, including an un-Islamic and illegal marriage with his third wife, Bushra Bibi, a faith healer, who has also been jailed.
Khan rose to Pakistan’s highest political office in 2018 before controversially being ousted from power in April 2022.
Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has effectively been barred from contesting after the country’s top court stripped it of its cricket bat election symbol.
Election symbols at the ballot boxes are crucial for voters in Pakistan, a nation where the adult literacy rate is just 58 percent, according to the World Bank.
While television channels have been banned from airing Khan’s addresses, thousands of PTI leaders and workers have been arrested, and their campaign rallies disrupted.
The PTI has alleged that the military and Pakistan’s caretaker government suppressed the party and made it difficult for party leaders to contest. Both have denied the allegations.
To circumvent the restrictions, the party has put up independent candidates and is using social media to urge voters in each constituency to recognize the contestants it is ing.
In Khan’s absence, scions of the country’s elite political dynasties – Nawaz Sharif and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari – are the front-runners vying for the prime ministership.
The two major parties contesting for 266 National Assembly seats in a 342-member house (with an additional 70 seats reserved for women and religious minorities) are Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), led by former prime minister Sharif, and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), led by former foreign minister Bhutto-Zardari.
Sharif is the top favorite, allegedly with the tacit approval of the powerful army, which has ousted several past governments and imposed martial law in the country.
Sharif was jailed for corruption ahead of the 2018 election that Khan won. He went into self-exile in the United Kingdom for health reasons and returned after his brother, Shehbaz Sharif, succeeded Khan and secured exoneration from all corruption charges.
But Bhutto-Zardari, 35, son of the assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, could present a formidable challenge to Sharif in an election whose credibility and fairness are already in question. EFE
Rights group Amnesty International said it was “deeply alarmed by the lethal and targeted violence” on offices, residences, and election convoys of election candidates and political parties, particularly in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“Amnesty is concerned about the pre-election violence, selective bans on protests and gatherings. harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention of party workers and candidates, media restrictions, internet and social media disruptions, and trials of political opponents with little due process.”
The rights group urged the caretaker government to ensure compliance with its human rights obligations during and after the elections by ensuring uninterrupted access to the internet, ending media restrictions and lifting all restrictions on assembly and protest.
The nonprofit demanded investigations into the targeted attacks on political workers and candidates, holding suspected perpetrators to through fair trials without recourse to the death penalty.
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