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Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to secure a record fourth straight term as her Awami League party was on Sunday inching closer to a landslide victory in the general elections marred by sporadic violence and a boycott by the main opposition BNP and its allies.
Hasina won the Gopalganj-3 seat for the eighth time since 1986. She bagged 249,965 votes while her nearest rival M Nizam Uddin Lashkar from the Bangladesh Supreme Party secured just 469 votes, bdnews24 reported.
Prime Minister Hasina cast her vote at Dhaka City College polling centre soon after the voting started. Her daughter Saima Wazed accompanied her
The 76-year-old leader, ruling the strategically located South Asian nation since 2009, is set to secure a record fourth consecutive term and fifth overall term in the one-sided election, which witnessed a low turnout.
According to the Daily Star newspaper, Awami League has so far won 17 out of 20 seats in the 300-member parliament. The Jatiya Party won one seat while independents bagged two.
Citing unofficial results, the Dhaka Tribune newspaper, however, reported that the Awami League has won in 170 constituencies while the Jatiya Party secured ten seats. Independent candidates won the race in 45 seats, it added.
Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader claimed that the people have rejected the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami’s boycott of the election by casting their ballots.
According to the initial estimates, the voter turnout was around 40 per cent but the figure could change after the final count, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal earlier said.
The 2018 general election recorded an overall turnout of more than 80 per cent.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) dubs polls as “fake”
Former premier Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leaders said the party plans to intensify its anti-government movement through a peaceful public engagement programme from Tuesday as it dubbed the polls as “fake”. The BNP boycotted the 2014 election but joined the one in 2018. This time, they boycotted the polls. Fifteen other political parties also boycotted the election.
The party leaders claimed that the low turnout was evidence that their boycott movement had been successful. They said that peaceful democratic protest programmes will be acceleratedand the people's right to vote will be established through this programme.
The BNP is observing a 48-hour nationwide general strike which began at 6 am on Saturday and will end at 6 am on Monday. It had called upon voters to shun the election to mark the beginning of an end of what it calls a "fascist government."
The election commission cancelled the candidature of a ruling Awami League candidate in northeastern Chattogram at the fag-end of the voting hours as he “scolded and threatened” a police officer.
The usual election-day fervour was nowhere to be seen. Even in front of the election campaign booths, there was no presence of voters except the ruling party-backed supporters and election agents.
Voters cast their votes without any disruption in the absence of long queues, leaving presiding officers with idle time.
Shots are fired and bomb explodes amidst clash between supporters
Shots were fired during a clash between supporters of two candidates running for the Chattogram-10 seat. Two people - Shanto Barua, 24, and Jamal, 35 - were shot and taken to Chattogram Medical College Hospital.
Two people were injured after a clash between supporters of the Awami League candidate and an independent candidate at a polling centre in Jamalpur’s Sharishabari.
Four persons, including a child, were injured after two crude bombs exploded near a voting centre in Dhaka's Hazaribagh.
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She alleged that the opposition BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami alliance does not believe in democracy.
"People will vote as they wish and we were able to create that voting environment. Although the BNP-Jamaat alliance has caused many incidents, including arson attacks," she told reporters.
In response to a question, Hasina said that India is a “trusted friend” of Bangladesh.
"We are very lucky...India is our trusted friend. During our Liberation War, they supported us not only that after 1975, when we lost our whole family - father, mother, brothers, everyone (in a military coup) - and only we two (Hasina and her younger sister Rehana) survived... they gave us shelter. So, we have our best wishes to the people of India," she told reporters.
In August 1975, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, his wife and their three sons were assassinated in their home by military officers. His daughters Hasina and Rehana survived the purge as they were abroad.
In response to a question on how acceptable the election will be while the BNP is boycotting it, Hasina said that her responsibility is towards the people.
"Whether people accept this election or not it is important to me. So, I don't care about their (foreign media) acceptance. No matter what did the terrorist party say or not?" she said.
The 27 political parties that contested the elections include the opposition Jatiya Party. The rest are members of the ruling Awami League-led coalition, which experts dub as "satellite parties." A total of 119.6 million registered voters were eligible to vote at Sunday's polls in more than 42,000 polling stations, according to the country’s Election Commission.
More than 1,500 candidates from 27 political parties were contesting in the election, besides 436 independent candidates.
Over 100 foreign observers, including three from India, monitored the 12th general election, which was held under tight security.
More than 7.5 lakh members of law enforcement agencies and security forces were deployed to ensure law and order during the polls.
On January 7 , the UN Special Rapporteur, Clement Nyaletsossi Voule, said he was "deeply disturbed" by the repressive environment surrounding the polls in Bangladesh.
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