Pakistan has begun counting votes after general election polling ended on Thursday. Pakistan has experienced phone outages, militant attacks, and widespread violence during the highly polarized voting period. On Wednesday, an Islamic State attack on electoral candidates’ offices in Balochistan province killed 26 people. Despite a widespread troop deployment across the country and the temporary closures of border crossings with Iran and Afghanistan, violence continued. On Thursday, explosions, grenade attacks, and shootings killed five police officers in the Kaluchi area of Dera Ismail Khan. Two children died in an explosion outside of a women’s polling station in Balochistan. Opposition leaders condemned Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja’s decision to suspend mobile networks across the country, who claimed the decision was made by security agencies following the terrorist attacks on Wednesday. The two front-running candidates are from the Pakistan Muslim League of Sharif and former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
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