The Pakistan Muslim League is the party of jailed ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif

The winner will face a crumbling economy and bloodshed by militants, who sent a suicide bomber to a crowded polling station in the south-western city of Quetta to carry out a deadly attack that killed 31 people. As polls closed, Pakistan’s Election Commission spokesman Nadeem Qasim said that the commission had issued a notice to aspiring prime minister Imran Khan saying his vote could be disqualified after he cast his ballot in front of television cameras, violating “the secrecy of the ballot paper.”

Mr Qasim said Khan violated Pakistan’s constitution, which guarantees the secrecy of the ballot. The election, in which Pakistanis voted for the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, and the four provincial assemblies, marked only the second time in Pakistan’s 71-year history that one civilian government has handed power to another in the country of 200 million people. No one immediately claimed responsibility, but local officials were quick to blame the Islamic State group. In a tweet on his official account, Pakistan’s military spokesman Gen. Asif Ghafoor called accusations of interference “malicious propaganda.”

Baluchistan also saw the worst violence during campaigning earlier this month, when a suicide bomber struck at a political rally, killing 149 people, including the candidate Siraj Raisani. IS claimed responsibility for that attack, though Baluchistan has seen relentless attacks, both by the province’s secessionists and Sunni militants who have killed hundreds of Shiites living there. The military has deployed more than 370,000 troops to ensure security on the polling day amid fears of further attacks after a series of bombings killed hundreds of people during campaign rallies. The leading contenders in Wednesday’s polling are former cricket star Imran Khan and his right-of-centre Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party, and the right-of-centre Pakistan Muslim League, the party of disgraced Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is in jail serving 10 years on corruption charges. 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 the Pakistani Taliban, whom she had vowed to eradicate. According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), 3,459 candidates are contesting for 272 general seats of the National Assembly, while 8,396 candidates are running for 577 general seats of the four provincial assemblies – Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. More than 30 political parties and 12,570 candidates competed for the support of 106 million registered voters in Wednesday's election, which determines the national and four provincial assemblies.
A blast outside a polling station in Quetta, Pakistan, kills 31 people and wounds several more on election day.