DHAKA: Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won re-election for a fifth term Sunday, officials said, following a boycott led by an opposition party she branded a “terrorist organization.”
Hasina’s ruling Awami League “has won the election,” an Election Commission spokesman told in the early hours of Monday morning, after a vote that initial reports suggested had a meagre turnout of some 40 percent.
Her party faced almost no effective rivals in the seats it contested, but it avoided fielding candidates in a few constituencies, in an apparent effort to avoid the legislature being branded a one-party institution.
The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose ranks have been decimated by mass arrests, called a general strike and, along with dozens of others, refused to participate in a “sham election.”
While the final result and exact figures will be formally announced at a ceremony later on Monday, election commission officials said Hasina’s party had won around three-quarters of seats, at least 220 of the total 300.
But support of other lawmakers including from allied parties could push Hasina’s control over parliament even higher.
Hasina, 76, had called for citizens to show faith in the democratic process.
“The BNP is a terrorist organization,” she told reporters after casting her vote. “I am trying my best to ensure that democracy should continue in this country.”
BNP head Tarique Rahman, speaking from Britain where he lives in exile, told he feared “fake votes” would be used to boost voter turnout.
“What unfolded was not an election, but rather a disgrace to the democratic aspirations of Bangladesh,” he wrote on social media, alleging he had seen “disturbing pictures and videos” backing his claims.
Pierre Prakash of the International Crisis Group said before the vote that Hasina’s government was clearly “less popular than it was a few years ago, yet Bangladeshis have little real outlet at the ballot box.”
