ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber struck outside a crowded polling station in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta, killing 31 people as Pakistanis cast ballots Wednesday in a general election meant to lead to the nation's third consecutive civilian government.
The attack in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, also wounded 35 people and several were reported to be in critical condition, raising concerns the death toll could rise further, according to hospital official Jaffar Kakar, a doctor.
A witness who was waiting to cast his ballot, Abdul Haleem, said he saw a motorcycle drive into the crowd of voters just seconds before the explosion. Haleem's uncle was killed in the explosion.
"There was a deafening bang followed by thick cloud of smoke and dust and so much crying from the wounded people," he told The Associated Press.
Baluchistan also saw the worst violence of the election campaign earlier this month when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a political rally, killing 149 people, including the candidate Siraj Raisani. Another 400 were wounded. Voting in that constituency has been suspended
Citing security concerns, the election commission announced that internet and cellphone services in several districts in Baluchistan have been suspended. Election commission secretary Babar Yaqub told reporters late Tuesday that threats against polling stations, staff and even candidates have been received.
Hours earlier, militants lobbed grenades and opened fire at a military convoy escorting election staffers and voting material in Baluchistan's district of Turbat, killing four troops. At the request of the election commission, Pakistan's military is deploying 350,000 troops countrywide outside and inside polling stations.
Also on Wednesday, police said a shooting between supporters of two opposing political parties killed one person and wounded two in a village near the northwestern city of Swabi.
Early voting was heavy at some polling stations in Islamabad, the capital, and also in the Punjab provincial capital, with several political party leaders standing in line to cast their ballots. Local television reported scattered incidences of police arresting people with pre-marked ballots,
Rights groups have warned that a rancorous election campaign and widespread allegations of manipulation imperil the wobbly transition to democratic rule and raise the specter of bitter challenges of fraud after the elections.
The unprecedented participation of radical religious groups, including those banned for terror links but resurrected and renamed, has also raised fears that the space for moderate thought may shrink further in Pakistan.
Attacks against minorities have increased in recent years.
One candidate, Jibran Nasir, an independent from Pakistan's financial hub of Karachi, received death threats and even had a fatwa, or religious edict, issued against him after he refused to condemn Ahmadis, reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics because they believe the messiah promised in Islam arrived over a century ago. Pakistan in 1974 declared Ahmadis non-Muslims.
"I am speaking for the millions of Pakistanis who are too afraid to confront religious bigotry," Nasir said in a telephone interview. He also said that no arrests have been made of those who threatened him.
The leading contenders in Wednesday's polling are former cricket star Imran Khan and his right-of-center Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party, and the right-of-center Pakistan Muslim League, the party of disgraced Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is in jail serving 10 years on corruption charges. His younger brother Shahbaz Sharif took control of the party.
Khan's supporters showered his vehicle with rose petals as he arrived to vote at a polling station near his home suburb in. Islamabad. After voting, he appealed on Pakistanis to come out and vote in huge numbers "to save future generations."
The third-largest party in the running is the left-leaning Pakistan People's Party, headed by Bilawal Bhutto, the son of late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, assassinated by Pakistan's Taliban militants, whom she had vowed to eradicate.
Election officials say more than 11,000 candidates are vying for 270 seats in Pakistan's law-making Lower House of Parliament and 577 seats in four provincial assemblies.
The 85,307 polling stations opened at 8 a.m. and will continue for 10 hours, an hour longer than in the 2013 polls. Voting for two parliamentary seats and six seats in provincial assemblies has been postponed due to attacks on candidates or disqualifications.
There are 105.96 million eligible voters in Pakistan, with 59.22 million men and 46.73 million women.
Pakistan's election commission reminded candidates their elections will be nullified if the female voter turnout does not reach 10 percent. The requirement was imposed after the 2013 elections, when several areas banned voting by women, mostly in Pakistan's religiously conservative northwest. Some candidates were elected without a single woman marking a ballot.
The commission issued its reminder Tuesday after veteran rights activist Tahira Abdullah said local jirgas, or councils, of elders from 60 areas of the country, representing 16 different constituencies, had signed agreements banning women from voting.
Results will trickle in after polling ends, with the outcome expected early Thursday, according to election officials.
International and domestic election observers will monitor voting. The European Union Election Observation Mission has 120 monitors at polling stations in major centers across Pakistan, with the exception of Baluchistan, where a suicide bomber earlier this month killed 149 people, including a candidate.
Under Pakistani law, separate seats are reserved for women and for non-Muslim minorities, which comprise 4 percent of the population.
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Explosion kills 31 as Pakistanis vote in general elections
Explosion kills 31 as Pakistanis vote in general elections
- A witness said he saw a motorcycle drive into the crowd of voters seconds before the explosion
- The incident and toll were confirmed by a second senior local official
Soldiers on the streets. What’s behind South Africa’s plan to deploy army in high-crime areas
JOHANNESBURG: It’s an unusual move for the African continent’s leading democracy: South Africa’s president announced earlier this month that he will deploy the army to high-crime areas to fight the scourge of organized crime, gang violence and illegal mining.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said soldiers would take to the streets — in places that have some of the world’s highest rates of violent crime — to combat what he described as the “most immediate threat” to South Africa’s democracy and economic development.
He said the deployment would happen in three of the country’s nine provinces, without giving a timeline. Some critics, however, say the army deployment could be seen as an admission that Ramaphosa’s government is losing the battle.
A top tourist city marred by violence
With a population of some 3.8 million, the stunningly beautiful Cape Town is South Africa’s second-largest city and one of its top tourist attractions.
But the neighborhoods on its outskirts, known as the Cape Flats, are notorious for deadly gang violence.
Street gangs with names such as the Americans, the Hard Livings and the Terrible Josters have for years battled for control of the illegal drug trade, while also being involved in extortion rackets, prostitution and contract killings.
Bystanders, including children, are often caught in the crossfire and killed in gang-related shootings. According to the latest crime statistics, South Africa’s three police precincts with the most serious crime rates are all in and around Cape Town.
Ramaphosa said one part of the army would deploy in the Western Cape province, where Cape Town is located and which statistics say has around 90 percent of the country’s gang-related killings.
Two other provinces, he said, would also see troop deployments: Gauteng, which is home to Johannesburg, South Africa’s biggest city, and the Eastern Cape province.
Illegal mining run by organized crime syndicates
The outskirts of Johannesburg and the wider Gauteng province are dotted with abandoned mine shafts and authorities there have long grappled with illegal gold mining.
They say the mining gang, known as zama zamas, are typically run by heavily armed crime syndicates, brutal in protecting their operations. They use “informal miners” recruited from desperate and impoverished communities to go into the shafts, searching for leftover precious deposits.
These gangs are often connected to high-profile violence, including a 2022 case that shocked South Africa when around 80 alleged illegal miners were accused of gang raping eight women who were part of a music video shoot at an abandoned mine.
Last year, a standoff between police and illegal miners in an abandoned mine left at least 87 miners dead after police took a hard-line approach and cut off their food supplies in an attempt to force them out.
The illegal miners are often involved in other crimes in nearby communities, analysts say, and turf battles between rival gangs have forced people to leave their homes and seek safety elsewhere.
Authorities say there are an estimated 30,000 illegal miners in South Africa, operating in some of its 6,000 abandoned mine shafts.
The government has noted an increase in illegal mining, which it estimates is worth more than $4 billion a year in gold lost to criminal syndicates.
The trade is believed to be predominantly controlled by migrants from neighboring Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, stoking anger among South African communities against both the criminal bosses and foreigners living in the local community.
Previous army deployments linked to apartheid
Ramaphosa is well aware that South Africans old enough to remember the years of forced racial segregation under the apartheid system, which ended in 1994, likely will recall images of troops deployed to suppress pro-democracy protests.
Mindful of that painful past, he said it was important not to deploy the army “without a good reason.”
But he said it has now “become necessary due to a surge in violent organized crime that threatens the safety of our people and the authority of the state.”
Ramaphosa sought to calm concerns by saying the army would operate under police command.
There have been other recent deployments of South African troops. In 2023, soldiers fanned out into the streets after a series of truck burnings raised concerns over wider public disorder. And around 25,000 troops were deployed in 2021 to quell violent riots sparked by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma.
South Africa also used soldiers to enforce strict lockdown rules during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Crime experts have expressed concern over Ramaphosa’s latest deployment plans, insisting the army is not a long-term solution to fighting crime and soldiers are not experts in domestic law enforcement.
Firoz Cachalia, the country’s police minister, has backed Ramaphosa and insisted the army will act in support of police and “their operations in particular locations.”
He said the deployment is time-limited and meant to stabilize areas “where people are losing their lives” every day.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said soldiers would take to the streets — in places that have some of the world’s highest rates of violent crime — to combat what he described as the “most immediate threat” to South Africa’s democracy and economic development.
He said the deployment would happen in three of the country’s nine provinces, without giving a timeline. Some critics, however, say the army deployment could be seen as an admission that Ramaphosa’s government is losing the battle.
A top tourist city marred by violence
With a population of some 3.8 million, the stunningly beautiful Cape Town is South Africa’s second-largest city and one of its top tourist attractions.
But the neighborhoods on its outskirts, known as the Cape Flats, are notorious for deadly gang violence.
Street gangs with names such as the Americans, the Hard Livings and the Terrible Josters have for years battled for control of the illegal drug trade, while also being involved in extortion rackets, prostitution and contract killings.
Bystanders, including children, are often caught in the crossfire and killed in gang-related shootings. According to the latest crime statistics, South Africa’s three police precincts with the most serious crime rates are all in and around Cape Town.
Ramaphosa said one part of the army would deploy in the Western Cape province, where Cape Town is located and which statistics say has around 90 percent of the country’s gang-related killings.
Two other provinces, he said, would also see troop deployments: Gauteng, which is home to Johannesburg, South Africa’s biggest city, and the Eastern Cape province.
Illegal mining run by organized crime syndicates
The outskirts of Johannesburg and the wider Gauteng province are dotted with abandoned mine shafts and authorities there have long grappled with illegal gold mining.
They say the mining gang, known as zama zamas, are typically run by heavily armed crime syndicates, brutal in protecting their operations. They use “informal miners” recruited from desperate and impoverished communities to go into the shafts, searching for leftover precious deposits.
These gangs are often connected to high-profile violence, including a 2022 case that shocked South Africa when around 80 alleged illegal miners were accused of gang raping eight women who were part of a music video shoot at an abandoned mine.
Last year, a standoff between police and illegal miners in an abandoned mine left at least 87 miners dead after police took a hard-line approach and cut off their food supplies in an attempt to force them out.
The illegal miners are often involved in other crimes in nearby communities, analysts say, and turf battles between rival gangs have forced people to leave their homes and seek safety elsewhere.
Authorities say there are an estimated 30,000 illegal miners in South Africa, operating in some of its 6,000 abandoned mine shafts.
The government has noted an increase in illegal mining, which it estimates is worth more than $4 billion a year in gold lost to criminal syndicates.
The trade is believed to be predominantly controlled by migrants from neighboring Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, stoking anger among South African communities against both the criminal bosses and foreigners living in the local community.
Previous army deployments linked to apartheid
Ramaphosa is well aware that South Africans old enough to remember the years of forced racial segregation under the apartheid system, which ended in 1994, likely will recall images of troops deployed to suppress pro-democracy protests.
Mindful of that painful past, he said it was important not to deploy the army “without a good reason.”
But he said it has now “become necessary due to a surge in violent organized crime that threatens the safety of our people and the authority of the state.”
Ramaphosa sought to calm concerns by saying the army would operate under police command.
There have been other recent deployments of South African troops. In 2023, soldiers fanned out into the streets after a series of truck burnings raised concerns over wider public disorder. And around 25,000 troops were deployed in 2021 to quell violent riots sparked by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma.
South Africa also used soldiers to enforce strict lockdown rules during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Crime experts have expressed concern over Ramaphosa’s latest deployment plans, insisting the army is not a long-term solution to fighting crime and soldiers are not experts in domestic law enforcement.
Firoz Cachalia, the country’s police minister, has backed Ramaphosa and insisted the army will act in support of police and “their operations in particular locations.”
He said the deployment is time-limited and meant to stabilize areas “where people are losing their lives” every day.
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