Bangladesh PM Hasina scores big election win, opposition claims vote rigged
DHAKA, (Reuters) Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s alliance won Bangladesh’s election with a thumping majority, the country’s Election Commission said early today, giving her a third straight term following a vote that the opposition rejected as rigged.
The alliance dominated by Hasina’s Awami League, seen as close to regional power India, won 287 of the 298 seats for which results have been declared for the 300-strong parliament, the commission said.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which boycotted the last poll in 2014, won just six seats.
Hasina’s win consolidated her decade-long rule over Bangladesh, where she is credited with improving the economy and promoting development but has also been accused of rampant human rights abuses, a crackdown on the media and suppressing dissent. She denies such charges.
Raising minimum wages for workers in Bangladesh’s massive garments industry, the world’s second biggest after China, could be one of her first tasks after she takes office, party leaders have said. Hasina will meet foreign journalists and poll observers at her official residence later on Monday.
Opposition leader Kamal Hossain said their alliance, the National Unity Front led by the BNP, had called on the Election Commission to order a fresh vote under a neutral administration “as soon as possible”, alleging Sunday’s poll was flawed.
At least 17 were people were killed as the vote took place, police said, after a violent campaign season during which the opposition alleged the government denied it a level playing field.
“The whole election was completely manipulated. It should be cancelled,” 82-year-old Hossain said at his residence in the capital, Dhaka, late on Sunday. Candidates reported witnessing ballot-stuffing and vote-rigging by ruling party activists, who also barred opposition polling agents from voting centres, Hossain said.
“We’ve had bad elections in the past but I must say that it is unprecedented how bad this particular election was. The minimum requirements of free and fair election are absent,” he said.
Hossain said he would meet opposition alliance members on Monday to decide their next step.
Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed, called the opposition “sore losers making false allegations”.
RIGGING INVESTIGATION
The Election Commission said it was investigating allegations of vote rigging from across the Muslim-majority country of 165 million people. A spokesman declined to say if those probes would affect the election result.
Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said on Twitter: “With serious allegations of voter intimidation, restrictions on opposition polling agents and several candidates seeking a re-poll, there are concerns about the credibility of the Bangladesh elections.”
Hundreds of opposition workers were arrested in the months before the election on charges that the opposition said were “fictitious”, and many said they were attacked by ruling party activists, crippling their ability to campaign.