Former premier Sheikh Hasina won a landslide victory in Bangladesh’s first election in seven years, decimating her rivals to take an absolute majority in Parliament that would restore democracy after a two-year reign by an army-backed interim administration.
The Hasina-led Grand Alliance had so far won 261 seats of the 300-seat National Assembly, with her Awami League taking 230 seats.
Her rivals, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), only bagged 27 seats, a stunning turnaround from their landslide victory in 2001, when their four-party centre-right coalition won 193 seats.
BNP’s Islamist ally Jamaat-e Islami was wiped out in Monday’s polls with all their major leaders suffering humiliating defeats and the party garnering only two seats compared to 17 seats in the 2001 elections.
It was still unclear, however, whether the BNP would accept the results, with BNP leaders lodging a complaint with the Election Commission alleging vote-rigging in 220 polling centres.
“There have been a lot of irregularities,” according to BNP spokesman Rizvi Ahmed, explaining their supporters were kept from voting in a number of areas.
Fears of a return to poll-related violence remained strong with the government deploying over 6,00,000 security personnel around the country.
Independent monitors observed on Tuesday that the polls, with 70 percent
turn out, were largely fair and credible. European Union observers called the peaceful polls ‘remarkable’ given the country’s army was forced to declare a state of emergency two years ago to prevent an allegedly rigged election after months of violence.
Monday’s victory concluded a dramatic, often painful, two years for Hasina who was jailed in July 2007 on corruption charges as part of an anti-corruption drive by the interim government, who also imprisoned Hasina’s rival Khaleda Zia.
Hasina’s victory, the biggest in the country’s history, gives her an unprecedented mandate, described by the local media as proof of the country’s demand for ‘change’.
She won on a platform of strong action against corruption, secularism and counter-terrorism.
The new government will be sworn in the first week of January.
