Security fears have run during the Pakistani election campaign on Saturday, amid threats of Taliban extremist movement, largely against three secular political parties.

Security fears have run during the Pakistani election campaign on Saturday, amid threats of Taliban extremist movement, largely against three secular political parties.

The May 11 election marks the first time a civilian government is transferring power after completing a full term in office without falling to a military coup.

Some 70,000 polling stations have been opened across the country, staffed by more than 600,000 workers. About 40 percent of polling stations are for women voters.

The Pakistani military has dispatched thousands of troops to polling stations in order to prevent militants from disrupting the vote. The Taliban previously threatened to carry out widespread attacks on Saturday, including suicide bombings, saying that it opposes the “infidel” system of democracy in the country.

In Karachi’s Landhi area, the political office of the Awami National Party (ANP) was targeted by an early morning bomb attack, which failed to kill candidate Aman Ullah. Three more explosions hit the port city in the following hours, killing at least 18 people.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, Taliban militants bombed polling stations and a police station in Saddar, and shot security officers and voters. The violence prompted the suspension of polling in northeastern Charsadda and Karachi’s Baldia Town.

Several bombs were reportedly defused before voting began on Saturday, according to media outlets.

Adding to the anxiety, an unidentified gunman kidnapped the son of a former Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani on Thursday; his whereabouts are still unknown.

The main Saturday’s political contest is between outgoing President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) and the opposition Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, with the latter expected to win a majority of votes.

The conservative Jamaat-i-Islami announced at an emergency media conference on Saturday that it is boycotting the elections in Karachi and Hyderabad. The party, which is among the oldest in Pakistan, said the move comes in a protest over threats against voters by the MQM in several constituencies in the areas, Dawn.com reported.

There are 4,670 candidates standing for 272 seats in the 342-member National Assembly's first-past-the-post system.

Following the election campaign marked by violence that killed more than 130 people, 86 million registered voters across four provinces and four federal territories are voting to elect representatives to the Pakistani National Assembly and provincial assemblies.