Pak­ista­nis braved cold win­ter weath­er and spo­radic vi­o­lence to vote for a new par­lia­ment Thurs­day, a day af­ter twin bomb­ings claimed at least 30 lives in the worst elec­tion-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence ahead of the bal­lot­ing.

Tens of thou­sands of se­cu­ri­ty forces were de­ployed at polling sta­tions and au­thor­i­ties sus­pend­ed mo­bile phone ser­vices across the coun­try to pre­vent dis­rup­tions and flash protests. Pak­istan’s In­te­ri­or Min­istry said the de­ci­sion was made to main­tain law and or­der. It did not say when the sus­pen­sion would be lift­ed.

There were a hand­ful of at­tacks that ap­peared aimed at dis­rupt­ing the vote.

In the north­west­ern dis­trict of De­ra Is­mail Khan, gun­men set off a bomb and then opened fire at a po­lice van, killing five of­fi­cers and wound­ing two oth­ers, lo­cal po­lice of­fi­cial Khalid Khan said. The of­fi­cers were as­signed to se­cu­ri­ty du­ty dur­ing the elec­tions.

No one claimed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the at­tack but the area is a for­mer strong­hold of the Pak­istani Tal­iban who of­ten tar­get po­lice forces.

Al­so in the north­west, gun­men fired on troops in the town of Kot Azam, killing a sol­dier, po­lice of­fi­cial Fiyyaz Khan said. Again, no one im­me­di­ate­ly claimed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for that at­tack.

Uniden­ti­fied as­sailants threw hand grenades at two polling sta­tions in restive south­west­ern Baluchis­tan province, where twin bomb­ings hit sep­a­rate elec­tion of­fices on Wednes­day, killing at least 30 peo­ple and wound­ing more than two dozen oth­ers. The Is­lam­ic State group claimed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for both bomb­ings.

The grenades on Thurs­day caused pan­ic among vot­ers but no one was hurt, po­lice said.

Vot­ers head­ed to the polls in heavy snow­fall in the ski re­sort of Mur­ree, near Is­lam­abad, and lined up to vote in snow-cov­ered plains in east­ern Pun­jab province and the moun­tains of south­ern Sindh province.

The elec­tion has al­so been marred by al­le­ga­tions from the Pak­istan Tehreek-e-In­saf par­ty of im­pris­oned for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Im­ran Khan that its can­di­dates were de­nied a fair chance at cam­paign­ing.

The crick­et star-turned-Is­lamist politi­cian — oust­ed in a no-con­fi­dence vote in par­lia­ment in 2022 — is be­hind bars and banned from run­ning in the elec­tion. He has a huge fol­low­ing but it’s un­clear if his an­gry and dis­il­lu­sioned sup­port­ers will turn up at the polls in sig­nif­i­cant num­bers.

Khan’s par­ty called the sus­pen­sion of the mo­bile phone ser­vices “a se­vere as­sault on democ­ra­cy” and a “cow­ard­ly at­tempt by those in pow­er to sti­fle dis­sent, ma­nip­u­late the elec­tion’s out­come, and in­fringe up­on the rights of the Pak­istani peo­ple.”

The elec­tion comes at a crit­i­cal time for this nu­clear-armed na­tion, an un­pre­dictable West­ern al­ly in a re­gion rife with hos­tile bound­aries and tense re­la­tions. Pak­istan’s next gov­ern­ment will face huge chal­lenges, from con­tain­ing un­rest, over­com­ing an in­tractable eco­nom­ic cri­sis to stem­ming il­le­gal mi­gra­tion.

As many as 44 po­lit­i­cal par­ties are vy­ing for a share of the 266 seats that are up for grabs in the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly, or the low­er house of par­lia­ment. An ad­di­tion­al 70 seats are re­served for women and mi­nori­ties in the 336-seat house.

Af­ter the elec­tion, the new par­lia­ment will choose the coun­try’s next prime min­is­ter. The deep po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sions make a coali­tion gov­ern­ment seem more like­ly. If no sin­gle par­ty wins a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty, the first-placed gets a chance to form a coali­tion gov­ern­ment, re­ly­ing on al­lies in the house.

The top con­tender is the Pak­istan Mus­lim League par­ty of three-time for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Nawaz Sharif who re­turned to the coun­try last Oc­to­ber af­ter four years of self-im­posed ex­ile abroad to avoid serv­ing prison sen­tences at home. With­in weeks of his re­turn, his con­vic­tions were over­turned, leav­ing him free to seek a fourth term in of­fice.

Af­ter vot­ing in the east­ern city of La­hore, an up­beat Sharif said he wasn’t think­ing about a coali­tion gov­ern­ment but look­ing for­ward to his par­ty win­ning a ma­jor­i­ty in par­lia­ment.

With his archri­val Khan side­lined and in prison, Sharif seems on a sure path to the pre­mier­ship, backed by his younger broth­er, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter She­hbaz Sharif. The younger Sharif, who is like­ly to have a role in the next Cab­i­net, told Geo news chan­nel on Wednes­day that his broth­er would be­come prime min­is­ter if their par­ty gets a ma­jor­i­ty of the vote.

The on­ly oth­er strong con­tender is Pak­istan Peo­ple’s Par­ty. It has a pow­er base in the south and is led by a ris­ing star in na­tion­al pol­i­tics — Bi­law­al Bhut­to-Zardari, the son of as­sas­si­nat­ed for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Be­nazir Bhut­to. He is­sued a state­ment, de­mand­ing restora­tion of the mo­bile phone ser­vice.

The Shar­ifs and Bhut­to-Zardari are tra­di­tion­al ri­vals but have joined forces against Khan in the past, and Bhut­to-Zardari served as for­eign min­is­ter un­til last Au­gust, dur­ing She­hbaz Sharif’s term as pre­mier.

Pres­i­dent Arif Alvi, who has a most­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al role in Pak­istan, cast his bal­lot in the south­ern port city of Karachi. He urged peo­ple to vote, say­ing it’s their du­ty as cit­i­zens.

If Khan’s sup­port­ers stay away from the polls, an­a­lysts pre­dict the race will come down to the par­ties of Nawaz Sharif and Bhut­to-Zardari, both ea­ger to keep Khan’s par­ty out of the pic­ture. As Bhut­to-Zardari is un­like­ly to se­cure the pre­mier­ship on his own, he could still be part of a Sharif-led coali­tion gov­ern­ment.

For Khan, con­vict­ed on charges of graft, re­veal­ing state se­crets and break­ing mar­riage laws — and sen­tenced to three, 10, 14 and sev­en years, to be served con­cur­rent­ly — the vote is a stark re­ver­sal of for­tunes from the last elec­tion when he be­came pre­mier.

Can­di­dates from Khan’s par­ty have been forced to run as in­de­pen­dents af­ter the Supreme Court and Elec­tion Com­mis­sion said they can’t use the par­ty sym­bol — a crick­et bat on vot­ing slips — to help il­lit­er­ate vot­ers find them on the bal­lots.

Sep­a­rate­ly, elec­tions are al­so tak­ing place Thurs­day for the na­tion’s four provin­cial as­sem­blies.

On Tues­day, the Unit­ed Na­tion’s top hu­man rights body warned of a “pat­tern of ha­rass­ment” against mem­bers of Khan’s par­ty, which claims it has been pre­vent­ed from hold­ing ral­lies like Sharif’s par­ty. Au­thor­i­ties de­ny the al­le­ga­tions.

Pak­ista­nis, like peo­ple in many oth­er im­pov­er­ished na­tions, grap­ple with sus­tained high in­fla­tion, ris­ing pover­ty lev­els, dai­ly gas out­ages and hours­long elec­tric­i­ty black­outs.

Since Khan’s ouster, Pak­istan has re­lied on bailouts to re­sus­ci­tate its spi­ral­ing econ­o­my, with a $3 bil­lion pack­age from the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund and wealthy al­lies like Chi­na and Sau­di Ara­bia jump­ing in with cash and loans.

Butt re­port­ed from La­hore, Pak­istan. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Ab­dul Sat­tar, Ri­az Khan and Asim Tan­veer in the cities of Quet­ta, Pe­shawar and Mul­tan, and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo con­tributed to this re­port.

IS­LAM­ABAD (AP) —