Under Taliban threat, Pakistan holds landmark polls

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Millions of Pakistanis are expected to brave Taliban threats Saturday, May 11, to vote in elections that mark a historic democratic transition in the nuclear-armed state ruled for half its life by the army.

The Taliban have branded democracy un-Islamic and have waged a virulent campaign of attacks against the main secular parties, killing more than 120 people in what has been called the country’s deadliest election in history.

Polls open at 8:00 am (0300 GMT) and close at 5:00 pm, allowing an electorate of more than 86 million to vote for the 342-member national assembly and four provincial assemblies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan.

The vote marks the first time that an elected civilian administration has completed a full term and handed power to another through the ballot box in a country where there have been three military coups and four military rulers.

The front-runner is ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif, head of the center-right Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) but much of the campaign has been electrified by cricket star Imran Khan with promises of reform and an end to corruption.

The charismatic 60-year-old leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) tapped into a last-minute surge of support after fracturing his spine when he fell from a stage at a campaign rally on Tuesday.

The outgoing centre-left Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has run a lackluster and rudderless campaign, with its chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, too young to run and kept out of view due to Taliban threats.

Turnout will be crucial. Commentators are divided on whether a wealth of enthusiastic first-term voters and Taliban threats will make turnout higher or lower than the 44 percent at the last elections in 2008.

The main issues are the tanking economy, an appalling energy crisis which causes power cuts of up to 20 hours a day, the alliance in the US-led war on Islamist militants, chronic corruption and the dire need for development.

The umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) stepped up their threats on the eve of the elections, warning voters to boycott polling stations to save their lives.

More than 600,000 security personnel have deployed nationwide and around half the estimated 70,000 polling stations have been declared at risk of attack, many of them in insurgency-torn parts of Baluchistan and the northwest.

The PML-N and PPP have dominated politics for decades. Led by two of the richest families in the country, the Sharifs and the Bhuttos.

With no reliable polling data, Sharif has been earmarked the most probable winner but if the PTI do well enough to become a formidable force, there are concerns that the emergent coalition will be weak and possibly short-lived. – Rappler.com