Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Pakistan appears headed for change of regime in voting
Pakistan’s ruling party likely headed to the sidelines as millions voted on Saturday.
ISLAMABAD — Millions of Pakistanis braved threats from militants and voted Saturday in national elections that marked the country’s first democratic transfer of governance and appeared to put former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on track for a return to power.
The elections will likely change Pakistan’s political landscape and probably sideline the Pakistan People’s Party, which had ruled the country for the past five years.
But the results are not expected to lead to any major shift in U.S.-Pakistan relations because the country’s military still holds sway over crucial issues such as Pakistan’s role in peace talks with insurgents in Afghanistan and the country’s relationship with its nuclear archrival, India.
The new national assembly has the responsibility of picking a new prime minister and charting a course that leads the country out of economic stagnancy and militancy that has killed thousands of Pakistanis in recent years.
Official results are not expected until Sunday. But unofficial tallies and Pakistani media projections indicated that, although Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party did not appear to win a clear majority of seats in parliament, it outpaced incumbent Asif Ali Zardari’s party and the Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaf, or the Movement for Justice Party, led by onetime cricket star Imran Khan.
Sharif, 63, declared victory in a jubilant speech.
“Please pray that by morning we’re in a position that we don’t need the crutch of coalition partners,” he said to supporters in Lahore.
Asad Umar, a top adviser to Khan, said his party conceded defeat. “I congratulate PML-N on this victory.”
Though hailed as a milestone in Pakistan’s democracy, the election also has been the country’s bloodiest. More than 100 candidates and activists were killed in bombings and ambushes.
On Saturday, there were bombings and other attacks in the country’s south and northwest that killed at least two dozen people.
A bomb outside a polling station in Peshawar killed a child and injured seven other people, police said. In Naseerabad in the southwest province of Baluchistan, gunmen attacked a candidate’s convoy, killing at least 14 people.
In Karachi, a bomb went off outside an Awami National Party campaign office, killing 10.
Still, Chief Election Commissioner Fakhruddin Ibrahim estimated turnout at about 60 percent, more than the 2008 election turnout of 44 percent.