Pakistan votes as suicide blast kills 30

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Khan speaks to members of media after casting his vote at a polling station during the general election in Islamabad, Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistanis voted yesterday in elections that could propel former World Cup cricket hero Imran Khan to power, after a campaign marred by military interference and insurgent violence that culminated with an election day suicide blast killing at least 30.

Members of the bomb disposal unit survey the site after a suicide blast, in Quetta, Pakistan.  — Reuters photos

The vote is a rare democratic transition in the populous and poor nuclear-armed Muslim country, which has been ruled by the powerful military for roughly half its history.

But it has also been dubbed Pakistan’s ‘dirtiest election’ due to widespread accusations of pre-poll rigging by the armed forces who are believed to favour Khan.

Polling day violence struck when dozens of people were killed in the suicide bombing, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, in the southwestern city of Quetta.

It was the second major attack by IS this month in Balochistan province, after an earlier blast killed 153 people in Pakistan’s deadliest ever suicide attack.

Hashim Ghilza, a local administration official, said the bomber attempted to enter the polling station.

“When police tried to stop him, he blew himself up,” he told AFP.

The blast left a scene of chaos all too familiar to residents of Quetta. Debris, bloodstains and charred vehicles littered the road outside the polling station as blood-spattered dead and injured were rushed to hospital accompanied by distraught loved ones.

The contest has largely become a two-way race between Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of ousted premier Nawaz Sharif, whose brother Shahbaz is leading its campaign.

Khan, 65, cast his vote in Bani Gala, a suburb of the capital Islamabad, telling the media it was “time to defeat parties

which kept this country hostage for years”.

Shahbaz casting his ballot at a polling station during general election in Lahore.

The first voter to enter a polling station in the eastern city of Lahore was a woman, business executive Maryum Arif, who told AFP she planned to vote for the PML-N as “it has served Pakistan”.

She was followed shortly after by Shahbaz Sharif, who called on Pakistanis to “get out of their homes and … change the fate of Pakistan” before casting his own vote and flashing a victory sign.

But other voters in Lahore, traditionaly a PML-N stronghold, said they were abandoning the party in favour of PTI.

“I have voted for PML-N my whole life but this time I voted for PTI because Imran Khan has promised free education and health,” said 75-year-old Uzma Akram.

Up to 800,000 police and troops have been stationed at more than 85,000 polling stations across the country, with concerns for security after a string of attacks targeting political events in the final weeks of the campaign killed more than 180 people, including three candidates.

An earlier attack in Balochistan yesterday left one policeman dead and three wounded when a hand grenade was thrown at a polling station in the village of Koshk. — AFP

In the northwestern town of Swabi one PTI worker was killed in an exchange of fire with a rival party, police said. — AFP