As voters headed to the polls, the influence of Pakistan’s powerful military and the turbulent state of the country’s politics were on full display.

Few doubted which party would come out on top, a reflection of the generals’ hold on Pakistan’s troubled democracy.

But the military is facing new challenges to its authority from a discontented public, making this an especially fraught moment in the nation’s history.

The tension was underlined as Pakistan’s Interior Ministry announced that it had suspended mobile phone service across the country because of the security situation.

Some analysts in Pakistan cast it as an effort to keep opposition voters from getting information or coordinating activities.

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