Pakistanis vote in landmark elections

Security tightened across the country after Taliban warned voters to stay away from polling stations.   Last Modified: 11 May 2013 07:01

Polls have opened in Pakistan amid tight security and incidents of violence in an election many hope will shift the fortunes of the country. Thousands streamed to polling stations across the country on Saturday despite threats from the Pakistan Taliban to disrupt the landmark elections. Twin bombings killed 10 people and injured 37 others close to a polling station in the port city of Karachi on Saturday, underlining the dangers voters faced in participating in the vote. Violence was also reported in Peshawar, where the AFP news agency reported female voters had been targeted in a bomb attack on a polling station in the northwestern city. Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Peshawar, said voters were flocking to polling stations across the country despite the threats. "For most part, the voting has been taking place according to plan," our correspondent said. The election marks the first time in the country's 65-year history that a civilian government has completed its full term and handed over power in democratic elections.  Previous governments have been toppled by military coups or sacked by presidents allied with the powerful army. Polls opened at 8am (03:00 GMT) and were due to close at 5pm, allowing an electorate of more than 86 million to vote for the 342-member national assembly and four provincial assemblies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan. The Taliban have waged a campaign of attacks against the main secular parties, killing more than 130 people in what has been called the country's deadliest election in history. Deadly violence struck again on Friday, with a pair of bombings against election offices in northwest Pakistan that killed three people and a shooting that killed a candidate in the southern city of Karachi. Around half of the estimated 70,000 polling stations have been declared at risk of attack, many of them in insurgency-torn parts of Baluchistan and the northwest. Frontrunner Sharif  The frontrunner is ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif, head of the centre-right Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) but much of the attention has been focused on cricket star Imran Khan with promises of reform and an end to corruption. Spotlight Coverage of 2013 general election across the politically divided South Asian nation. The 60-year-old leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) tapped into a last-minute surge of support after fracturing his spine when he fell from a stage at a campaign rally on Tuesday. If Khan's party can take enough votes away from Sharif, it might open the way for the outgoing centre-left Pakistan People's Party (PPP) to once again form the government. Despite widespread unhappiness with the party's performance over the past five years, it does have a loyal following in rural areas of southern Sindh province and southern Punjab. The main issues are the troubled economy, an appalling energy crisis which causes power cuts of up to 20 hours a day, the alliance in the US-led war on armed groups, chronic corruption and the dire need for development.