16 dead in Bangladeshi vote opposition calls ‘farcical’

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — More than a dozen people were killed in election-related violence in Bangladesh on Sunday, as voters went to the polls to decide whether to give Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina a third consecutive term amid opposition claims that her leadership has become increasingly authoritarian.

The leader of Bangladesh’s opposition alliance called Sunday’s vote “farcical,” saying any outcome would be rejected and demanding that a new election be held under the authority of a “nonpartisan government.”

The election campaign was marred by allegations of arrests and jailing of thousands of Hasina’s opponents.

Opposition leader Kamal Hossain said a few hours after voting ended that about 100 candidates from the alliance had withdrawn from their races during the day. He said the alliance would hold a meeting Monday to decide its next course.

“We call upon the Election Commission to declare this election void and demand a fresh election under a nonpartisan government,” Hossain told reporters at a nationally broadcast news conference.

Calls to several Hasina aides seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Bangladesh’s leading English-language newspaper, the Daily Star, said 16 people were killed in 13 districts in election-related violence.

In the run-up to the election, activists from both the ruling party and the opposition complained of attacks on supporters and candidates.

On Sunday, The Associated Press received more than 50 calls from people across the country who identified themselves as opposition supporters complaining of intimidation and threats, and being forced to vote in front of ruling party men inside polling booths.

“Some stray incidents have happened. We have asked our officials to deal with them,” K.M. Nurul Huda, Bangladesh’s chief election commissioner, said as he cast his vote in the capital, Dhaka.

The election campaign was marred by the arrests and jailing of what the opposition said were thousands of Hasina opponents, including six candidates for Parliament.

“Hasina’s use of the state machinery to subjugate the opposition virtually ensures her electoral victory,” said Sasha Riser-Kositsky, a South Asia analyst for the New York-based Eurasia Group.

Hasina has expressed confidence in the outcome, inviting election observers and foreign journalists to her official residence on Monday, when the results were expected to be known.

While rights groups have sounded the alarms about the erosion of Bangladesh’s democracy, Hasina has promoted a different narrative, highlighting an ambitious economic agenda that has propelled Bangladesh past larger neighbors Pakistan and India by some development measures.

Voters “will give us another opportunity to serve them so that we can maintain our upward trend of development, and take Bangladesh forward as a developing country,” Hasina said after casting her ballot along with her daughter and sister in Dhaka.

Hasina’s main rival is former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, who a court deemed ineligible to run for office because she is in prison for corruption.

The two women have been in and out of power – and prison – for decades.

In Zia’s absence, opposition parties formed a coalition led by Hossain, an 82-yearold Oxford-educated lawyer and former member of Hasina’s Awami League party.

Both sides were hoping to avoid a repeat of 2014, when Zia and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party boycotted elections and voter turnout in the South Asian nation of 160 million was only 22 percent. More than half of the 300 parliamentary seats were uncontested. The Awami League’s landslide victory was met with violence that left at least 22 people dead.