PM Hasina wins Bangladesh election

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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling party won Bangladesh's election with a thumping majority, the country's Election Commission said early on Monday, giving her a third straight term following a vote that the opposition rejected as rigged.

An alliance dominated by Hasina's Awami League won 287 of the 298 seats for which results have been declared for the country's 300-strong parliament.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which boycotted the last poll in 2014, won just six seats.

Polling officers count votes at a polling station in Dhaka, Bangladesh on December 30, 2018./VCG Photo

"My congratulations to the Awami League," Helal Uddin Ahmed, secretary of the Election Commission Secretariat, said in a televised speech, reading the results. Hasina's win consolidated her decade-long rule over Bangladesh, where she is credited with improving the economy and promoting development.

Raising minimum wages for workers in Bangladesh's massive garments industry, the world's second biggest after China, could be one of her first tasks after she takes office, party leaders have said.

Hasina was due to meet foreign journalists and poll observers at her official residence later on Monday.

Rigging Investigation

Opposition leader Kamal Hossain said their alliance, National Unity Front led by the BNP, had called on the Election Commission to order a fresh vote under a neutral administration "as soon as possible," alleging Sunday's poll was flawed.

"The whole election was completely manipulated. It should be canceled," 82-year-old Hossain added in an interview at his residence in the capital Dhaka late on Sunday. Candidates of the alliance reported witnessing ballot-stuffing and vote rigging by ruling party activists, who also barred opposition polling agents from voting centers, Hossain said.

Female voters with children queue up at a voting center to cast their vote during the general election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, December 30, 2018./VCG Photo

The Election Commission said it was investigating allegations of vote rigging from across the Muslim-majority country of 165 million people.

Election day clashes

At least 17 people were killed as the vote took place, police said, after a violent campaign season during which the opposition alleged Hasina's government never granted it a level playing field.

An agency spokesman declined to say if those probes would affect the election result.

Awami League's Joint Secretary Jahangir Kabir Nanak said the opposition had been rejected by voters and that its refusal to accept the voting results was "not unusual."

Scores of opposition workers were arrested in the months before the election on charges that the opposition said were "fictitious," and many said they were attacked by ruling party activists, crippling their ability to campaign.

Supporters of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed and leader of the Awami League party walk through the streets shouting slogans in Dhaka on December 30, 2018./VCG Photo

Hasina's government has denied the accusations and her party says many of its own workers have been injured in attacks by the opposition. Seven ruling party workers and five BNP workers were killed and 20 wounded on election day, police said.

This was the first election in which the BNP campaigned without its leader Khaleda Zia – Hasina's arch-rival. The two women have alternated in power for most of the last three decades, but Khaleda has been in jail since February on corruption charges that she says are politically motivated.

Opposition leader Hossain said he would meet with alliance members on Monday to decide their next step. The Election Commission said it would hold a fresh 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.

Source(s): Reuters