Bangladesh election: Sheikh Hasina wins fourth straight term as prime minister

Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina has swept to a fourth straight term in power, with her party winning almost 75 per cent of the seats in a general election that was boycotted by the main opposition and drew a low turnout.

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which participated in the 2018 vote but kept away in 2014, boycotted the polls after Ms Hasina refused its demands to resign and allow a neutral authority to run the general election.

Ms Hasina played down the boycott and said her aim for the next five years was to boost the economy. “Each political party has right to take decision; absence of one party in election does not mean democracy is absent,” she told reporters.

The daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founding father of Bangladesh who was killed in an army coup in 1975 along with most members of the family, Ms Hasina (76) first became prime minister in 1996. This will be her fifth term overall.

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In her past 15 years in power she has been credited with turning around the economy and the huge garments industry, while winning international praise for sheltering Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in neighbouring Myanmar.

Critics, however, accuse Ms Hasina of authoritarianism, human rights violations, crackdowns on free speech and suppression of dissent.

The economy has also slowed sharply since the Russia-Ukraine war pushed up prices of fuel and food imports, forcing Bangladesh to turn last year to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $4.7 billion (€4.2 billion) bailout. Inflation was at 9.5 per cent in November.

“The government must curb the crazy inflation. And I request them to lower tax and provide subsidies to poor people. We don't want anything else,” said Abdul Halim, a plastic toy seller in Dhaka, while reading a newspaper pasted on a wall.

Bangladeshis largely stayed away from the election, which was marred by violence. Turnout was about 42 per cent when polls closed on Sunday, said chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal, compared with over 80 per cent in the last election in 2018.

The ruling Awami League party won 222 seats out of 298, according to unofficial results released by the Bangladesh Election Commission.

Ms Hasina herself won 249,962 votes from her constituency Gopalganj, about 165km south of the capital Dhaka, while her nearest rival secured just 469 votes.

Several nations, including India, Russia and China, have congratulated Ms Hasina.

Among the ruling party winners were the actor Ferdous Ahmed and the former Bangladesh cricket captains Shakib Al Hasan and Mashrafe Mortaza.

[ Bangladesh opposition boycotts swearing-in after disputed election ]

Rights groups warned of a virtual one-party rule by Ms Hasina’s Awami League in the South Asian country of 170 million people, while the United States and western nations, key customers of Bangladesh’s garment industry, had called for the election – the 12th since independence from Pakistan in 1971 – to be free and fair.

Independent candidates, many of them Awami League party members of various ranks, won 61 seats, meaning parliament will largely be without any credible opposition for the next five years.

The BNP, whose alliance won seven seats in the 2018 election, has accused the ruling party of propping up “dummy” independent candidates to try to make the election look credible, a claim the Awami League has denied.

The BNP had called a two-day strike nationwide through to Sunday, asking people to shun the election. On Monday, it called for a fresh election under a caretaker administration, calling the election “a government of the dummy, by the dummy, for the dummy”.

“We demand the immediate cancellation of the dummy election, resignation of Hasina and formation of a non-party neutral government for holding a fresh election,” senior BNP leader Abdul Moyeen Khan said.

Ms Hasina has accused the opposition of instigating anti-government protests that have rocked Dhaka since late October and resulted in the deaths of at least 14 people.

Police said at least five Awami League activists were attacked and injured on Monday by supporters of the losing independent candidate in the coastal district of Patuakhali.

– Reuters

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024