Sheikh Hasina secures fourth straight term in Bangladesh polls amid boycott by opposition

PTI

Dhaka, January 8

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has secured a record fourth straight term as her Awami League party won an overwhelming majority in the general election marred by sporadic violence and a boycott by the main opposition BNP and its allies.

Hasina's party won 223 seats in the 300-seat Parliament. Election was held for 299 seats. The election to one seat will be held later due to the death of a candidate, according to media reports.

The main opposition in Parliament, the Jatiya Party, got 11 seats, Bangladesh Kallyan party won in one constituency while independent candidates came out victorious in 62 seats. Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal and the Workers Party of Bangladesh won one seat each.

Hasina, 76. also the president of Awami League, won the Gopalganj-3 constituency in a landslide victory, her eighth term as a Member of Parliament.

Hasina, who has been ruling the strategically located South Asian nation since 2009, secured a record fourth consecutive term and fifth overall term in the one-sided election, which witnessed the second-lowest turnout since the restoration of democracy in 1991.

The turnout in the controversial February 1996 polls was 26.5 per cent, the lowest in Bangladesh's history.

With this win, Hasina is poised to become the longest-serving prime minister in Bangladesh since independence. 

Former premier Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which boycotted the election and observed a strike on election day, said the party plans to intensify its anti-government movement through a peaceful public engagement programme from Tuesday as it dubbed the polls as "fake".

The BNP boycotted the 2014 election but joined the one in 2018. This time, they boycotted the polls. Fifteen other political parties also boycotted the election. 

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