Alive News

After an acrimonious campaign, polls opened in Pakistan on Wednesday to elect the country’s third straight civilian election __ a first for this majority Muslim nation that has been directly or indirectly ruled by its military for most of its 71-year history.

Rights groups have warned that the rancorous campaign and widespread allegations of manipulation imperil the wobbly transition to democratic rule and raise the specter of bitter post-election challenges of fraud.

The unprecedented participation of radical religious groups, including those banned for terrorist links but resurrected and renamed, has also raised fears 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, who are reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics because they believe the messiah promised in Islam arrived over a century ago.

In Pakistan it is a crime for an Ahmadi to call himself a Muslim after a 1974 constitutional amendment declared them non-Muslims.

“I am speaking for the millions of Pakistanis who are too afraid to confront religious bigotry,” he 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 or PTI 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. 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 parliament 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.

Citing security worries, the election commission announced internet and mobile phone services in several districts in southwestern Baluchistan province has been suspended because of security issues. Some of the worst violence during campaigning occurred in Baluchistan, where earlier this month a suicide bomber devastated a political rally killing 149 people including the candidate, Siraj Raisani. Voting in that constituency is suspended.

Election commission secretary Babar Yaqub, told reporters late Tuesday that threats against polling stations, staff and even candidates have been received.

His statement came just hours after 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.

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 southwestern Baluchistan province 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.

Voter turnout in 2013 was 54.8 percent.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for the past 15 years, prepared Monday to extend his rule and take on sweeping new powers after his victory in the country’s landmark presidential and parliamentary elections.

Turkey’s High Electoral Board declared Erdogan, 64, the winner of Sunday’s votes, which usher in a new executive presidential system in which the prime minister’s post is eliminated and executive powers are transferred to the president, who rules with only limited checks and balances.

The Turkish leader is accused by critics of adopting increasingly authoritarian tactics but is loved by supporters for bringing prosperity and stability. Erdogan may be facing rough times ahead, however, because analysts predict an economic downturn for Turkey amid rising inflation and a struggling currency.

His win could also deepen Turkey’s rift with its Western and NATO allies, who are already concerned by the country’s setbacks in democracy and human rights as well as Turkey’s closer ties with Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin sent Erdogan a telegram on Monday, congratulating him on his victory, one of the first world leaders to do so.

Turkey’s currency, the lira, rallied Monday over Erdogan’s victory, which reduces instability in the short term.

In his victory speech, Erdogan said he would work toward achieving his goal of making Turkey one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2023, when the Turkish Republic marks its centenary.

He also pledged a more “determined” fight against outlawed Kurdish rebels and alleged members of a movement led by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom he accuses of orchestrating a 2016 failed coup against his government. Gulen denies involvement.

Some 50,000 people have been arrested and more than 110,000 civil servants have been fired in a massive government crackdown that has taken place under a state of emergency imposed after the coup that is still in place.

“Turkey made its choice in favor of a more determined fight against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and (Gulenists),” Erdogan said. “We will go after terror organizations with stronger determination.”

Under the new system, Erdogan himself will appoint ministers, vice presidents and high-level bureaucrats, issue decrees, prepare the budget and decide on security policies.

According to unofficial results that have yet to be confirmed by the electoral board, Erdogan garnered 52.5 percent of the presidential vote, while his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, won 42.5 percent of the parliamentary vote. Erdogan’s closest contender, Muharrem Ince of the secular opposition Republican People’s Party, won 30.7 percent support.

Erdogan’s AKP fell short of winning a parliamentary majority but a better-than-expected performance by its nationalist ally should allow the party to control the 600-seat legislature.

Ince, who complained that it was an unfair election, accepted Erdogan’s victory during a news conference Monday.

“There are no significant differences between our records and the Supreme Election Council’s records,” Ince told reporters. “I accept the results of the elections.”

The former physics teacher, who led a robust campaign against Erdogan, called on him to end his divisive policies.

“Be the president of 81 million (Turks), embrace everyone,” he said. “That’s what I would have done if I had won.”

Still, the 54-year-old politician criticized Turkey’s new system, saying: “Turkey has cut off its ties with democratic values… (Turkey) has transitioned to a one-man regime in the fullest sense.”

Before the start of the news conference, Ince asked a crew from Turkey’s state television TRT to leave the hall, criticizing the publicly-funded organization for ignoring the opposition’s campaign rallies and not allowing other candidates equal airtime to Erdogan during the race. The TRT journalists left.

The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, whose presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtas was forced to campaign from jail, received the more than 10 percent of the vote Sunday, enough to win seats in parliament. In reaction, thousands of its supporters spilled into the streets in celebration.

In a series of Twitter postings, Demirtas praised the party’s success in winning a projected 67 seats out of 600, according to unofficial results.

“The fact that I was forced to campaign in detention conditions was the greatest injustice,” Demirtas said. “While other candidates could stage 100 campaign rallies, I was able to send out 100 tweets.”

Demirtas, who won 8.4 percent in the presidential race, has been in pre-trial detention since November 2016 on terror-related charges. He denies any wrongdoing.

Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, said Monday it was now up to Erdogan to decide whether Turkey’s relations with the European Union will improve.

Margot Wallstrom, Sweden’s foreign minister, said Turkey’s democracy has shortcomings — she cited opposition leaders sitting in jail — but said Erdogan should be given the chance to do that.

“We are hoping for the end of the state of emergency (in Turkey,” she told reporters in Brussels.