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08-01-2024
DHAKA: PM Sheikh Hasina is set to win a fifth term, fourth straight in general elections, boycotted by the main opposition party.
Hasina voted just after ballots opened at 8am (02:00 GMT). Polls officially closed at 4pm (10:00 GMT).
Counting of votes will start shortly, with initial results expected by early Monday.
Nearly 800,000 police, paramilitary and police auxiliaries are guarding the polls. Armed forces have also been deployed.
Women make up almost half of the nearly 120 million eligible voters, while first-time voters number about 15 million.
Access to the website of The Daily Manab Zamin newspaper has been blocked across Bangladesh, one of the leading news outlets in the country.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which is boycotting the election, a “terrorist” organization.
Independent elections analysts say the voter turnout was very low. The election commission says some 27 percent of voters, an hour before polls closed, had cast their ballot.
Two people were shot amid clashes in Chattogram city, formerly known as Chittagong.
However, there have been reports of voters being threatened with confiscation of government benefit cards if they refuse to vote for the ruling Awami League.
“They said since the government feeds us, we have to vote for them,” said an elderly voter from the central district of Faridpur.
Meanwhile, Hasina’s opponents, including the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), have called for a general strike and have urged the public not to vote, following months of protests last year demanding the prime minister’s resignation ahead of the election.
Hasina said the main party boycotting Sunday’s national elections was a “terrorist organization”, adding that she was trying to ensure her country remained democratic and urging the public to cast their votes, AFP reported.
“The BNP is a terrorist organization,” she told waiting reporters after casting her vote moments after polls opened at the Dhaka City College, alongside her sister and daughter.
“I am trying my best to ensure that democracy should continue in this country,” Hasina said. “The election will be free and fair,” she added.
BNP reported that around 25,000 opposition cadres, including the entire party’s local leadership, were arrested in a crackdown, while the government estimates the number to be around 11,000.
Protests continued before the election, including a few hundred opposition supporters marching in central Dhaka.
The election commission said around 175,000 police officers and more than 515,000 members of the Ansar reserve force had been deployed to keep order during the vote. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
