Bangladeshis head to polls as contentious election begins

DHAKA — Voters in Bangladesh began casting their ballots today as polls opened in an election fraught with violence and a boycott from the main opposition party, paving the way for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League to seize a fourth-consecutive term.

Authorities said at least 18 arsons were reported across the country since late Friday, with 10 of them targeting polling places. Four people died Friday in an arson on a passenger train heading toward the capital, Dhaka. The incidents have intensified tensions ahead of the parliamentary elections that the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allied groups said they would shun.

Campaigning in the South Asian nation of 169 million has been marred with violence. At least 15 people have been killed in recent months. Hostilities reached a boiling point in late October, after a rally in Dhaka by the BNP saw clashes with police.

As the election neared, authorities blamed much of the violence on the BNP, who they accuse 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 passenger train attack. The opposition party denied any role in the incident, and say they are being blamed by authorities who want to discredit their “peaceful and nonviolent movement.”

Voting was set to last 8 hours across the country for about 119 million eligible citizens to vote in more than 42,000 stations. Polling was set to be held in 299 constituencies out of 300, because the election in one constituency was postponed after an independent candidate died of natural causes. About 700,000 security officials have been deployed to guard the polls and more than 120 foreign observers have arrived to monitor the vote, according to the Election Commission.

For months, the main opposition BNP group says it has no faith that a democratic and free election can take place under the 76-year-old Hasina and have demanded that the vote be administered by a neutral caretaker government. The government has rejected the demand.

They accuse her government of widespread vote-rigging in the 2018 election, which authorities have denied. That election followed another contentious vote in 2014, which was boycotted by the BNP and its allies.

Critics and rights groups have called the election a farce and questioned the legitimacy of the polls if there are no major challengers to take on Hasina.

The government has defended the election, saying 27 parties and 404 independent candidates are participating. But with scores of those independent candidates from the Awami League itself, and mostly smaller opposition parties in the race, analysts say the result is nearly inevitable.