[The head of the opposition coalition, Kamal Hossain, said the alliance had asked the Election Commission to order a fresh vote under a neutral administration “as soon as possible,” alleging Sunday’s poll was unfair and that Mrs. Hasina’s government never granted her opponents a level playing field.]
By Reuters
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Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, center, spoke to the news media after
casting her
vote at a polling station in Dhaka on Sunday. Credit Indranil Mukherjee/
Agence
France-Presse — Getty Image
|
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ruling party
won Bangladesh’s election with a large majority, the country’s Election
Commission said early on Monday, giving Mrs. Hasina a third straight term
following a vote that the opposition rejected as flawed.
At least 17 people were killed in Bangladesh
in election-related violence on Sunday, according to the police, as voters went
to the polls to decide an election tainted by widespread allegations of rigging
by the government.
The win by Mrs. Hasina’s Awami League, which
was reported by the secretary of the Election Commission Secretariat in a
televised speech, would consolidate her decade-long rule over Bangladesh. Mrs.
Hasina is credited with improving the economy and promoting development, but
has also been accused of rampant human rights abuses, a crackdown on the news
media and suppressing dissent — charges she denies.
The head of the opposition coalition, Kamal
Hossain, said the alliance had asked the Election Commission to order a fresh
vote under a neutral administration “as soon as possible,” alleging Sunday’s
poll was unfair and that Mrs. Hasina’s government never granted her opponents a
level playing field.
“The whole election was completely
manipulated. It should be canceled,” Mr. Hossain, 82, said in an interview at
his residence in the capital, Dhaka, late Sunday. Candidates of the alliance
reported seeing ballot-stuffing and vote-rigging by ruling party activists, who
also barred opposition polling agents from voting centers, Mr. Hossain said.
“We’ve had bad elections in the past, but I
must say that it is unprecedented how bad this particular election was,” he
said. “The minimum requirements of free and fair election are absent.”
The Awami League won 287 of the 298 seats for
which results have been declared in the 300-seat Parliament, the Election
Commission said. The main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which
boycotted the last poll in 2014, won just six seats.
The commission said it had received
allegations of vote-rigging from “across the country,” which it was
investigating. A spokesman at the agency declined to say whether those
investigations would affect the election result.
The commission said it would hold a new vote
for one seat where the poll was marred by violence. Another constituency, where
a candidate died days before the election, will also go to the polls in the
next few days.
Jahangir Kabir Nanak, the joint secretary of
the Awami League, said the opposition had been “rejected by the people of
Bangladesh” and that its refusal to accept voting results was “not unusual.”
“It is their old habit,” he said referring to
the B.N.P., which has alternated in power with the Awami League for most of the
last three decades. “We thought they would welcome this election for a change.
But they could not change their habit,” he said.
Scores of opposition workers were arrested in
the months before the election on charges that the opposition called
“fictitious,” and many said they were attacked by ruling party activists,
crippling their ability to campaign.
“The election is a cruel mockery with the
nation. This type of election is harmful to the nation,” said the B.N.P.’s
secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.
Mrs. Hasina’s government has denied the
accusations and her party has claimed many of its own workers were injured in
attacks by members of the opposition.
Polling booths across the country were
sparsely attended, and some voters alleged that ruling party workers had
blocked them from entering booths, saying their ballots had already been cast.
Campaign posters of the ruling party dominated streets in many parts of Dhaka.
This was the first election the B.N.P. had
campaigned without its leader, Khaleda Zia. She and Mrs. Hasina have alternated
in power for most of the last three decades, but Mrs. Zia has been in jail
since February on corruption charges, which she has called politically
motivated.
Mr. Hossain said he would meet with alliance
members on Monday to decide the next step. B.N.P.’s demand this year for polls
to be held under a neutral government was rejected by Mrs. Hasina, who promised
a “free and fair election.”
