Sheikh Hasina leads in Bangladesh election boycotted by opposition

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is about to secure her fourth consecutive term with her ruling Awami League (AL) party heading towards yet another victory in a parliamentary election that was boycotted by the main opposition party.

Hasina’s party won more than 50% of the seats in the 300-strong unicameral parliament, according to initial election results from 208 parliamentary constituencies announced by Election Commission official Jahangir Alam.

The constituency-wide election results were being announced as counting of ballots progressed on the ground with officials sending them to the commission headquarters in Dhaka.

So far, the Awami League secured 152 seats while the current opposition in parliament, the Jatiyo Party, got only eight seats.

Independent contenders, mostly AL rebels, bagged 45 seats in the election, marred by low turnout and sporadic violence that killed at least one person on Sunday.

An election official said results in rest of the constituencies would be completed and announced by Monday morning at the latest.

Voter turnout was more or less 40%, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal told a news conference after the polls closed in the afternoon, compared to more than 80% in the 2018 general election.

He said his office had tried its level best to ensure fairness in the election.

“There has been no report of death out of election-related violence,” he said, adding that his office was verifying allegations of vote rigging and falsification in some places.

Polling stations were opened in the morning across Bangladesh for the country's 12th parliamentary election. Nearly 120 million voters had eight hours to cast their votes.

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of former prime minister Khaleda Zia and its right-wing allies boycotted the election, fearing that the polls would be rigged.

They had demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the installation of a non-party caretaker administration to ensure the election was credible.

The BNP called a nationwide general strike for the weekend, calling for people not to go to the polling stations.

The party said its call for boycotting the vote was successful.

“People of this country rejected the stage-managed election, where the real voters’ turnout was not more than 2 per cent,” Abdul Moyeen Khan, a senior leader of the BNP told reporters.

In a post-election news briefing, Obaidul Qader, the ruling Awami League’s secretary general, said the voters have rejected the BNP’s call through ballots.

“They (voters) have rather boycotted the BNP and its allies,” he said.

During Sunday’s voting, the election authorities scrapped the candidacy of a ruling Awami League (AL) party nominee from the south-eastern Chattogram constituency for violation of the election code of conduct.

The contender, Mustafizur Rahman Chowdhury, had allegedly threatened to chop off the hands of law enforcement agencies if they did not abide by his instructions and created chaos in a polling station in his constituency, said Election Commission spokesman Jahangir Alam.

Incidents of violence took place in at least 30 places during the voting, he said, adding that law enforcement agencies arrested at least seven troublemakers.

He said the commission was informed that at least 27 candidates had stayed out of the race on the final day over allegations of falsification, vote rigging and intimidation.

An AL supporter was stabbed to death by the supporters of an independent candidate in Munshiganj district near Dhaka during Sunday’s voting.

The incident took place when rival groups got locked in an altercation over the election, election official Abu Jafar Ripon said, adding an investigation was launched into the murder.

Four people were wounded in Dhaka’s Hazaribagh neighbourhood after two home-made bombs exploded near a polling station, police officer Bachchu Mia said.

Four people were killed after a passenger train was set ablaze in Dhaka on Friday and more than a dozen polling stations were hit in arson attacks on Saturday.

Authorities deployed more than 800,000 security personnel to maintain order during the election, in which voters had options to cast their ballots for all but one of 300 parliamentary seats, with 1,970 party-affiliated and independent candidates running for office.