INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina swept to a fourth straight term as expected with her party winning an absolute majority in the
general election, the poll body said on Monday, amid low turnout in the vote boycotted by the main opposition.The main opposition Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP), who participated in the 2018 vote but kept away in 2014, boycotted the polls after Hasina refused their demands to
resign and allow a neutral authority to run the general election.The daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founding father of Bangladesh who
was killed in an army coup in 1975 along with most members of the family, Hasina, 76, first became prime minister in 1996
This will be her fifth term overall.In her past 15 years in power she has been credited with turning around the economy and the massive
garments industry, while winning international praise for sheltering Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in neighbouring
Turnout was about 40% when polls closed, said chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal, compared with over 80% in the last election in
2018.The ruling Awami League party won 167 seats out of 227 seats with the outcome of the rest of the seats still to be announced, according
to unofficial results released by the Election Commission.Hasina herself bagged 249,962 votes from her constituency Gopalganj, about 165
kilometres (103 miles) south of the capital Dhaka, while her nearest rival secured just 469 votes.Rights groups warned of a virtual
accountability was to citizens of Bangladesh.She has instructed party leaders and supporters not to bring out any victory processions or
with close to 120 million voters eligible to choose from nearly 2,000 contestants
Election to one seat will be held at a later date after an independent contestant died ahead of the vote due to natural causes.Among the
ruling party winners were actor Ferdous Ahmed and former Bangladesh cricket captains Shakib Al Hasan and Mashrafe Mortaza.Independent
candidates, many of them Awami League party members of various ranks, won 49 seats.The BNP has accused the ruling party of propping up
strike nationwide through Sunday, asking people to shun the election, and said the low turnout was a success for their boycott call.Hasina
has accused the opposition of instigating anti-government protests that have rocked Dhaka since late October and killed at least 14
people.At least four people were killed on Friday in a passenger train fire that the government called arson
Several polling booths, schools and a Buddhist monastery were also set ablaze days before the poll.Critics accuse Hasina of
authoritarianism, human rights violations, crackdowns on free speech and suppression of dissent.The economy has also slowed sharply since
the Russia-Ukraine war pushed up prices of fuel and food imports, forcing Bangladesh to turn last year to the International Monetary Fund
for a $4.7 billion bailout.Source: Reuters--Agencies
