After arson, deaths and low turnout, Hasina wins fourth consecutive term

Dhaka, Bangladesh: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has won an overwhelming majority in Bangladesh’s parliamentary election after a campaign fraught with violence and a boycott from the main opposition party, giving her and her Awami League a fourth consecutive term.

While the Election Commission has been slow to announce the results of the election, TV stations with journalists across the country reported the Awami League won 224 seats out of 299. Independent candidates took 62, while the Jatiya Party, the third largest in the country, took 11 seats and the Kallyan Party got one.

Firefighters work to douse flames at a refugee camp at Kutupalong in Cox’s Bazar district, Bangladesh, on Sunday.Credit: AP

The election was held in 299 out of 300 parliamentary seats. In one seat, the election was postponed as required by law after an independent candidate died. A final official declaration from the Election Commission is expected on Monday.

At least 18 arson attacks preceded the vote, but the election day passed in relative calm. Turnout was about 40 per cent, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal said after the polls closed.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by former premier Khaleda Zia, refused to accept the election outcome, saying Bangladeshi voters had rejected the government’s one-sided election.

Security incidents, including four deaths in an arson attack on a passenger train last week, intensified tensions ahead of the election that was shunned by Zia’s party and its allied groups. They accuse Hasina of turning Bangladesh into a one-party state and muzzling dissent and civil society.

A security officer inspects the damage inside a passenger train that caught fire, killing four people in Dhaka, Bangladesh.Credit: AP

Authorities blamed much of the violence on the BNP, accusing it of seeking to sabotage the election. On Saturday, detectives arrested seven men belonging to the BNP and its youth wing for their alleged involvement in the train attack. The party denied any role in the incident.

On Sunday, a supporter of an Awami League candidate was stabbed to death in Munshiganj district near the capital, Dhaka, officials said.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina shows her ballot paper as she casts her vote.Credit: AP

A victory for the 76-year-old Hasina, the country’s longest-serving leader and one of its most consequential, would come with a deeply contentious political landscape.

The vote, like previous elections, has been defined by the bitter rivalry between Hasina’s Awami League and the BNP, led by Zia, who is ailing and under house arrest on corruption charges, which her supporters claim are politically motivated.

The two women ran the country alternately for many years, cementing a feud that has since polarised Bangladesh’s politics and fuelled violence around elections. This year’s vote raised questions over its credibility when there are no major challengers to take on the incumbent.

Badshah Mia, a rickshaw puller in Dhaka, said he did not vote given the limited choices, adding that the atmosphere didn’t exude that of “a fair election”.

Sakibul Hasan Chowdhury, a businessman, felt the same. “There is no opposition and no candidate of my choice. So how would I benefit from voting?”

A small business owner, Habibur Rahman, said he was voting for the ruling party candidate in his constituency but added that there didn’t seem to be much of a turnout.

Critics and rights groups say the vote follows a troubling pattern, where the past two elections held under Hasina were sullied by allegations of vote-rigging – which authorities have denied – and another boycott by opposition parties.

AP

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