2024-01-08 12:14:15
The Bangladesh Election Commission announced this Monday that the ruling Awami League party achieved a large majority in last Sunday’s general elections, thus guaranteeing a fourth consecutive term for the current Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina. Hasina’s party won 223 of the 299 parliamentary seats up for grabs, said the head of the Electoral Commission, Habibul Awal, at a press conference in the Bangladeshi capital.
Yesterday’s elections were marked by a low turnout, 40% compared to the 80.2% turnout in the 2018 elections, and by the boycott of the opposition parties, which this Monday demanded the resignation of the prime minister and the holding new elections under an interim administration.
Some 1,900 candidates belonging to 28 political parties, most of them belonging to the Awami League or supported by this formation, competed for 299 of the 300 parliamentary seats up for grabs, after the authorities suspended voting in one constituency due to the death of a candidate.
At least one person died during the election day among a wide deployment of security forces, which allowed the country’s authorities to affirm that it was a peaceful election compared to the 19 deaths recorded in 2018, in which they did participate. the opposition. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies boycotted the elections due to Hasina’s refusal to dissolve his government and appoint an interim administration to oversee the elections.
In addition to not presenting candidates, the BNP called a 48-hour general strike that began yesterday to discourage voters from going to the polls. The opposition group has denounced a campaign of state repression months before the elections, with more than 24,000 of its leaders and followers arrested by security forces.
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