Pakistan Election 2024: How violence, rigging allegations marred polling

Pakistan election results will be out in a few hours. Counting of votes for the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, and four provincial legislatures will continue through the night. A clear picture would be known by early Friday.

While voting came to an end across most areas in the country at 5 pm local time (5:30 pm IST), the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) reportedly extended the polling time by two hours extension at some centres.

The casting of ballots came amid the suspension of mobile phone services and allegations of rigging. Voting was also marred by violence in some areas.

Let’s take a closer look.

Violence, mobile services suspended in Pakistan

Sporadic attacks were reported in Pakistan on the day of the balloting, killing at least nine people, including two children.

While thousands of security personnel were deployed on the streets and polling booths across the country, five policemen were killed in a bomb blast and firing on a patrol in the Kulachi area of Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Another person died in firing on a security forces vehicle in Tank.

Grenade attacks were also reported in different parts of Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province. A soldier from a civilian force was killed and 10 others wounded in more than a dozen explosions due to grenades or improvised explosive devices, Reuters reported citing officials. Two children also lost their lives in a blast outside a women’s polling station in the southwestern province.

These attacks come a day after two explosions near electoral candidates’ offices in Balochistan killed at least 30 people and injured more than two dozen. Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the Wednesday attacks.

Besides boosting security, Pakistan also temporarily closed land borders with Iran and Afghanistan on Thursday.

National Democratic Movement chief Mohsin Dawar, a candidate from North Waziristan – which is a den of Islamist insurgents in northwest Pakistan – wrote a letter to ECP on Thursday, saying the Taliban have “taken over the polling stations” in NA-40, Tappi.

“We have also filed an application with the police against an attack there on three of our female polling agents,” Dawar wrote in a post on X.

He also claimed “large-scale rigging” in his constituency, blaming the suspension of mobile phone services on failure to collect information.

Large scale rigging is underway in my constituency NA-40 N. Waziristan. It has been difficult to collect information because mobile connections have been shut down. Presiding officers are giving away voting books like peanuts. @ECP_Pakistan has failed to take notice.

— Mohsin Dawar (@mjdawar) February 8, 2024

Pakistan temporarily shut down cellphone services on Thursday, a move widely criticised by the Opposition and rights groups.

Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is vying for the post of Pakistan PM, earlier called for the “immediate restoration” of the services.

Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) asked people to remove passwords from their personal WiFi accounts “so anyone in the vicinity can have access to internet on this extremely important day”.

The election commission refused to lift the ban, saying the decision on mobile networks was made by “law and order agencies” after the violence on Wednesday.

ECP officials reported getting several complaints from people who could not find their polling stations due to the internet outage.

“The communication with voters and others are very difficult … we are facing so many problems due to the internet closure,” 50-year-old Mehmood Chaudry, a school teacher who cast his vote in the city of Rawalpindi, told Reuters.

Nighat Dad, a lawyer who runs the not-for-profit Digital Rights Foundation, said the shut down of mobile services “is an attack on the democratic rights of Pakistanis”.

“Shutting down mobile phone services is not a solution to national security concerns. If you shut down access to information, you create more chaos,” she told the AFP news agency.

Rigging allegations

The Pakistan elections were marred by allegations of pre-poll rigging, with observers predicting that Imran Khan’s imprisonment and the crackdown on his party could result in low turnout.

Former Pakistan PM Khan is behind bars on corruption charges and barred from running due to his multiple convictions. Still, the 71-year-old and his PTI party remain popular among Pakistani voters, especially youth.

The PTI candidates were forced to fight as independents after the country’s election commission deprived the party of its iconic election symbol, the cricket bat. Political parties rely on symbols to help illiterate voters find them on the ballots in Pakistan.

Speaking to Associated Press (AP), political analyst Azim Chaudhry termed PTI’s treatment as “pre-poll rigging.” “The whole election process seems to be a coronation,” he said.

Pakistan’s caretaker PM Anwarul Haq Kakar admitted to Sky News that the interim government cannot “guarantee” free and fair elections. In an interview on the eve of the elections, he also asserted there was no attempt to “target a specific party or group”, according to Dawn News.

Al Jazeera reported that polling agents from the PTI party were “kidnapped” in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Khan’s party claimed that the blackout of internet and phone services showed that there was ongoing vote rigging.

The Karachi wing of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) accused Zardari’s PPP and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) of carrying out “massive rigging” in the city. “The shutdown of the mobile services is proof that a plan is being made to bring the desired people. Mobile services have also been shut down to hide evidence of fraud,” the party said, as per Dawn News.

Former PPP senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar said earlier in the day that the suspension of mobile services “is the beginning of election day rigging”.

“Pre-poll environment was already one of the worst in Pakistan’s history. Cutting candidates off from their agents and staff on election day is unacceptable,” he wrote on X.

Shutting down mobile networks on polling day is the beginning of election day rigging. Pre-poll environment was already one of the worst in Pak’s history. Cutting candidates off from their agents and staff on election day is unacceptable. How’s one suppose to keep a check and…

— Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar (@mustafa_nawazk) February 8, 2024

Nawaz Sharif’s return and the dropping of his convictions soon after had triggered concerns of the elections being rigged even much before the polling. He is widely expected to become the prime minister of Pakistan for the fourth time, with the blessing of the country’s military.
However, some analysts believe there might not be a clear winner, paving the way for a coalition government.

With inputs from agencies