Bangladesh Elections 2024 Highlights: PM Sheikh Hasina re-elected for 5th term in office

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India's High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pranay Verma during his call on to Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina conveyed, on behalf of the Government of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, warm greetings and congratulations to her on her election victory. He expressed hope that during the new term of her government, there will be even stronger momentum and growth in the bilateral partnership in support of each other’s national development: Sources to ANI

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has won a fifth term in power with her party taking three-quarters of seats in parliament, election officials said Monday after polls boycotted by the opposition as a "sham".

"The Awami League has won the election," said Moniruzzaman Talukder, a joint secretary of the Election Commission a day after a vote boycotted by the opposition, with initial reports suggesting a meagre turnout of some 40 percent.

Talukder said Hasina's party had won 223 seats, but support of other lawmakers including from allied parties, means Hasina's actual control over the 300 seat parliament is even higher, analysts said.

"This is a one-party parliament," Ali Riaz of Illinois State University told AFP, adding that "only the allies of the Awami League had the opportunity to participate".

As opposition outcry, strikes, and bans erupt in the run-up to the Bangladesh elections, wherein incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is seeking a fourth consecutive, and a fifth overall term in office, a nation of 170 million people prepare for Bangladesh's country’s 12th general election.

“With political arrests, atrocities & other human rights violations, Sheikh Hasina declared her victory in the Bangladesh 🇧🇩 elections. Elections do not take place without opposition, it was only referendum. Int'l community will not recognize it as election,” said, Muhammed Faisal, an X user.

The Bangladesh PM retains her title as the world’s longest-serving female head of government after her party swept more than half of the parliament seats.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won re-election for a fifth term Sunday, officials said, following a boycott led by an opposition party she branded a "terrorist organisation".

Hasina's ruling Awami League "has won the election", an Election Commission spokesman told AFP in the early hours of Monday morning, after a vote that initial reports suggested had a meagre turnout of some 40 percent.

She has presided over breakneck economic growth in a country once beset by grinding poverty, but her government has been accused of rampant human rights abuses and a ruthless opposition crackdown.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has won an overwhelming majority in Bangladesh's parliamentary election after a campaign fraught with violence and a boycott from the main opposition party, giving her and her Awami League a fourth consecutive term.

While the Election Commission has been slow to announce the results of Sunday's election, TV stations with networks of journalists across the country reported that the Awami League won 216 seats out of 299. Independent candidates took 52, while the Jatiya Party, the third largest in the country, took 11 seats. The results for the rest of the constituencies were still coming in late on Sunday night.

The election was held in 299 out of 300 parliamentary seats. In one seat, the election was postponed as required by law after an independent candidate died.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took an unassailable lead for a fifth term in office Sunday, winning at least 60 percent of seats in parliament, media reported.

Of the three-quarters of results announced -- 225 seats from a total 300 -- Hasina's Awami League had won 172 and her allied Jatiya Party eight more, according to results collated by Somoy TV, the country's largest private news broadcaster. Counting continues.

Leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which boycotted Sunday's general elections, said it plans to intensify its anti-government movement through a peaceful public engagement programme from Tuesday as it dubbed the polls as "fake."

In the meantime, the country's main opposition party's leaders at various levels are performing their duties in monitoring the situation after the elections.

The outcome of the election due to be held in Bangladesh on January 7th is not uncertain. Sheikh Hasina, who has governed the South Asian country since 2009, has made sure that only she can win.

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Bangladesh Prime Minister and Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina was re-elected to parliament on Sunday from the Gopalganj-3 constituency after a landslide victory in the general elections marred by sporadic violence and a boycott by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

Hasina, 76, bagged 249,965 votes while her nearest rival M Nizam Uddin Lashkar from the Bangladesh Supreme Party secured just 469 votes, bdnews24 reported.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina looked certain Sunday to win a fifth term in office following a boycott led by an opposition party she branded a "terrorist organisation", as partial results pointed to an overwhelming victory.

Hasina has presided over breakneck economic growth in a country once beset by grinding poverty, but her government has been accused of rampant human rights abuses and a ruthless opposition crackdown.

A voter puts their fingerprint on the ballot paper before casting a vote during the 12th general election in Dhaka

An elderly woman puts ballot paper inside a ballot box after casting her vote in the morning during the 12th general election in Dhaka

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is on course to extend her rule and retain her title as the world’s longest serving female head of government after polling closed in an election boycotted by her rivals and voters.

Hasina’s Awami League Party is expected to take the lead when early results trickle in and the Election Commission has put the turnout at about 40%. It’s a sharp drop from the 80% participation in polls in 2018, as voters heeded a campaign by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party to shun the election and draw attention to the sweeping crackdown her government carried out in the run up to the polls.

The counting of votes has begun in Bangladesh as polling for the 12th Parliamentary elections in the country ended on Sunday, with 27 per cent votes cast till 3 pm (local time), the Dhaka Tribune reported.

The voting began at 8 am at 261,912 polling stations in 42,024 voting centres and continued until 4 pm.

Thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have been left without shelter after a suspected arson attack ripped through their camp burning nearly 800 homes, an official said Sunday.

Bangladesh is home to around a million Rohingya, many of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown on the mainly Muslim minority in neighbouring Myanmar that is now subject to a UN genocide probe.

Vote counting was underway Sunday in Bangladesh's parliamentary election that was fraught with violence and a boycott from the main opposition party, paving the way for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League to seize a fourth consecutive term.

At least 18 arson attacks preceded the vote but the election day passed relatively calm. Turnout was around 40%, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal said after the polls closed.

Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) did not participate in the parliamentary elections because it knew that it would lose, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said on Sunday.

“The BNP has taken a strategy of boycotting the election with various excuses, various demands. They participated in the 2018 election and got some parliamentary seats, but this year they did not participate knowing they would be defeated,” Khan, a senior leader of the ruling Awami League, was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune newspaper.