Bangladeshi Prime Minister set to win fifth term in poll beset by low turnout
▶ Only 40 per cent of voters show up to cast ballots after main opposition party calls boycott
Most Bangladeshis stayed away from the polls during yesterday’s general election, expected to give Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina a fourth straight term, and fifth overall, amid a boycott by the main opposition party.
Despite at least 18 arson attacks in the days before the vote, the election day passed relatively calmly. The turnout was about 40 per cent, said chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal, compared with more than 80 per cent at the last election in 2018. Initial results are expected early today.
Rights groups have warned that Ms Hasina’s Awami League could practically implement one-party rule in the country after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and some smaller allies boycotted the election.
The US and other western nations, key customers of Bangladesh’s garment industry, have called for the election – Bangladesh’s 12th since gaining independence from Pakistan in 1971 – to be free and fair.
Voting was cancelled at seven polling centres because of irregularities, and an Awami League candidate was disqualified for threatening security officials, an election commission official said.
The BNP, which has boycotted two of the past three elections, said Ms Hasina’s party is trying to legitimise a sham vote. Ms Hasina refused the BNP’s demands to resign and allow a neutral authority to run the election, accusing the opposition of instigating anti-government protests that have rocked Dhaka since late October and killed at least 14 people.
The BNP called a two-day strike nationwide over the weekend and asked people not to vote.
Party leader Abdul Moyeen Khan said the opposition’s boycott call was a success.
“The people of the country boycotted the government by not going to the polling booths,” he said.
Over the past 15 years in office, Ms Hasina, 76, has been credited with turning around Bangladesh’s economy. But critics accuse her of authoritarianism, human rights violations, crackdowns on free speech and suppression of dissent.
She previously served as prime minister from 1996 to 2001. At least four people were killed on Friday in a passenger train fire that the government said was arson. Several polling booths, schools and a Buddhist monastery were set ablaze days before the poll.
Police in Chandpur district, about 110km from Dhaka, fired tear gas to disperse BNP supporters who had blocked roads to disrupt voting and thrown stones at security forces, district police chief Saiful Islam said.
Supporters of the Awami League and independent candidates clashed in some districts, amid allegations that ruling party cadres were stuffing sealed ballot papers into voting boxes, local media reported.
Bangladesh stationed almost 800,000 security personnel to guard polling booths, and troops were mobilised nationwide to help keep the peace.
Ms Hasina, accompanied by her daughter and other family members, voted at Dhaka’s City College minutes after polling began at 8am.
“Bangladesh is a sovereign country and people are my power,” Ms Hasina said after voting, adding that she hoped her party would win the people’s mandate.
“I am trying my best to ensure that democracy should continue in this country.”
About 120 million voters were choosing from nearly 2,000 candidates for 300 directly elected parliamentary seats. There were 436 independent candidates, the most since 2001.
The BNP, whose top leaders are either in jail or exile, said the Awami League has put up “dummy” candidates as independents to try to make the election look credible, a claim the ruling party denies.