Bangladesh election officers are counting votes after a controversial ballot, fraught with violence and boycotted by the opposition, is assured to provide a fourth straight time period to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Bangladeshis largely stayed away from the vote on Sunday as preliminary indicators steered a low turnout, regardless of widespread studies of carrot-and-stick inducements geared toward bolstering the ballot’s legitimacy.
“Vote counting has begun,” stated election fee spokesman Shariful Alam. Outcomes are anticipated as early as Monday morning.
Turnout was 27.15 p.c at 3pm (09:00 GMT), an hour earlier than polls closed, the election fee stated, in contrast with an total turnout of greater than 80 p.c within the final election in 2018.
Voting was cancelled at three centres as a result of irregularities, stated Jahangir Alam, secretary of the fee.
Impartial election observer and civil society activist Badul Alam Majumder advised Al Jazeera he didn’t take into account the vote a “correct election in any respect”.
“It has a critically low turnout – most likely the bottom I’ve seen in my life,” he stated, including that his organisation didn’t formally monitor the vote this 12 months.
Hasina, 76, urged residents to solid their ballots and present their religion within the democratic course of, branding the principle opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Celebration (BNP) a “terrorist organisation”.
Accompanied by her daughter and different members of the family, Hasina voted at capital Dhaka’s Metropolis School minutes after polling started.
“Bangladesh is a sovereign nation and individuals are my energy,” she stated after voting, including that she hoped her get together would win the folks’s mandate, which might give it a fifth time period since 1996.
“I’m making an attempt my greatest to make sure that democracy ought to proceed on this nation.”
The BNP, whose ranks have been decimated by mass arrests, referred to as a two-day nationwide strike by Sunday, urging folks to not take part in what it referred to as a “sham” election.
BNP chief Tarique Rahman, talking from Britain the place he lives in exile, stated he was fearful about poll stuffing.
“I concern that the election fee might improve voter turnout through the use of faux votes,” he advised AFP information company.
Hasina final 12 months refused BNP calls for to resign and permit a impartial authority to run the election, accusing the opposition of instigating antigovernment protests which have rocked the capital since late October and killed no less than 14 folks.
Rights teams have warned of digital one-party rule by Hasina’s Awami League within the South Asian nation of 170 million folks after the boycott by the BNP and a few smaller allies.
Tanvir Chowdhury, Al Jazeera correspondent in Dhaka, stated there was a “lack of curiosity and enthusiasm” among the many folks.
“Town is quiet and sombre. Nobody needs to talk freely on digital camera. Individuals are saying off the file that is all very predictable. It isn’t an inclusive election.”
Not less than 4 folks have been killed on Friday in a passenger practice hearth that the federal government referred to as arson. A number of polling booths, faculties and a Buddhist monastery have been set ablaze days earlier than the ballot.
An individual in Munshiganj, south of the capital Dhaka, was hacked to demise on Sunday morning, district police chief Mohammad Aslam Khan stated, including that it was unclear if the killing was associated to political violence.
Police in Chandpur district about 110km (70 miles) from Dhaka fired tear gasoline to disperse BNP supporters who had blocked roads to disrupt voting and threw stones at safety forces, stated district police chief Saiful Islam.
Supporters of the Awami League and impartial candidates clashed in some districts, amid allegations that ruling get together cadres have been stuffing sealed poll papers in voting containers, native media reported.
Bangladesh deployed practically 800,000 safety forces to protect polling cubicles and troops have been mobilised nationwide to help in sustaining peace.
About 120 million voters have been selecting from practically 2,000 candidates for 300 immediately elected parliamentary seats. There are 436 impartial candidates, probably the most since 2001.
The opposition BNP, its prime leaders both in jail or exile, says the Awami League has propped up “dummy” candidates as independents to attempt to make the election look credible, a declare the ruling get together denies.
Hasina stated she didn’t must show the credibility of the election to anybody. “What’s necessary is that if the folks of Bangladesh will settle for this election.”
Politics on this planet’s eighth-most populous nation was lengthy dominated by the rivalry between Hasina, the daughter of the nation’s founding chief, and two-time premier Khaleda Zia, spouse of a former army ruler.
Hasina has been credited with turning round Bangladesh’s financial system and the important thing garment business. However critics accuse her of authoritarianism, human rights violations, crackdowns on free speech and suppression of dissent.
Her Awami League get together confronted nearly no efficient rivals within the seats it contested, however it prevented fielding candidates in a number of constituencies, an obvious effort to keep away from the legislature being branded a one-party institution.
Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute on the Wilson Heart, stated none of these contesting would be capable of mount a lot of a problem to Hasina’s get together.
“The end result is all however assured, and that’s that the Awami League will return [to power] once more,” he stated. “Bangladesh’s democracy will likely be in an especially precarious state as soon as the election is finished.”
