Guwahati, January 8: Amidst opposition’s boycott, Sheikh Hasina tightens grip over Bangladesh, winning fifth term in election. Election commission announced that Hasina’s ruling Awami League has won the election in the early hours of Monday morning. The local media reported that Hasina’s Awami League won 216 seats out of 299, independent candidates took 52, and the Jatiya Party took 11 seats. The results for the rest of the constituencies were still coming in.
The voters turnout was 27.15 percent at 3pm (09:00 GMT), an hour before polls closed, the election commission said, compared with an overall turnout of more than 80 percent in the last election in 2018. Many lawmakers and members of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League are among 436 independent candidates in the race that the opposition BNP has boycotted for the second time in three elections. Despite the BNP’s boycott, Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League alleges that they have fielded several independent candidates.
Founder President of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, daughter, Hasina urged citizens to cast their ballots and show their faith in the democratic process, branding the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) a “terrorist organisation”. The uniqueness of the election were the highest number of independent candidates since 2001 election and with a record high of 5.1 per cent women candidates in Bangladesh’s election history.