An army convoy patrols the streets on the outskirts of Peshawar, yesterday.
MIRANSHAH: Bombs exploded near political party offices in remote areas of Pakistan yesterday, killing five people on the eve of a landmark election the Taliban have vowed to disrupt with suicide attacks.
A motorbike bomb killed four people and wounded 15 close to offices of parties in the main town of North Waziristan, the stronghold of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked groups on the Afghan border.
Security officials said Nawaz Sharif’s centre-right Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), cricket star Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and right-wing religious party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, an ally of the outgoing government, had offices nearby. The injured taken to the state-run Miranshah hospital, some in a serious condition.
In the southwest, a low-intensity bomb planted on the roof of the office of a Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) candidate in Quetta wounded five people early yesterday. The device detonated when supporters of former cabinet minister and PPP MP Sardar Omar Gorgaj were gathering in his office.
Campaigning ended at midnight with pleas for votes from Nawaz Sharif bidding for a historic third term as prime minister, and Khan looking for a breakthrough.
The PPP has run a lacklustre and rudderless campaign in the face of Taliban threats, with its chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, too young to contest a parliamentary seat.
Attacks on politicians and political parties have killed more than 120 people since mid-April and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the election was the most violent in the country’s history.
The panel said its acute concern did not stem merely from threats and violence targeting individuals “but much more from the manner in which violence has impaired the fairness of the election almost beyond repair”.
It called on institutions to “stretch themselves to their absolute limit to ensure security of voters, candidates and polling stations so that people can exercise their right to choose their representatives”.
Most commentators expect PML-N to win but it remains unclear how far PTI can provide an upset and restrict his chances of forming a stable coalition.
The election commission said 179m ballot papers were being distributed to around 70,000 polling stations under army supervision.
More than 600,000 security personnel, including thousands of soldiers, have been deployed to ensure secuirty.
The election is the first time in Pakistan’s history that an elected civilian administration has handed power to another through the ballot box. The nuclear-armed state has been ruled by the military for half its life.
More than 86 million voters have from 8am to 5pm to elect 272 MPs to the 342-member national assembly and legislators to four provincial assemblies.
No one claimed responsibility for the bombings, but the Taliban, who consider the election un-Islamic, have carried out numerous attacks to undermine the polls and say they have dispatched suicide bombers for polling day.
The Taliban have singled out the secular-leaning PPP and its main coalition partners, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which controls Pakistan’s biggest city of Karachi, and the Awami National Party in the northwest.
“Democracy is against Islam and is a system for infidels. Being a Muslim, it’s our responsibility to reject this thinking and ideology and be part of the struggle to enforce Sharia,” Taliban sospokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said.
On Thursday, former PPP prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s son Ali Haider Gilan was kidnapped and two of his aides killed in Multan. Ali, 27, is a PPP candidate for the Punjab provincial assembly.
In Karachi, the militants hold sway after chasing secular parties away. Some six months ago, what should have been the headquarters of the Awami National Party (ANP), an ally of the outgoing government, in the working class district of Sohrab Goth, were abandoned.
“A small group of Taliban came to the ANP office and told them to leave quickly. They didn’t even have to force them,” a neighbour said. ANP activists complied have not been seen since.
In Sohrab Goth, the militants have allowed others to campaign, notably Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, reputedly close to the militants. Karachi is beset by ethnic tensions between Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking core support base of the party that controls the city, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and the Pashtuns who have migrated to escape violence in the northwest. Others are Afghans, who cannot vote.
Agencies
