At least 17 people killed, with claims ruling Awami League rigged country’s first contested election in a decade

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Bangladesh’s opposition has rejected the “farcical” results of national elections won by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, in a landslide victory that handed her ruling coalition 96% of the vote.

The country’s election commission said Hasina’s Awami League had secured a record third consecutive term, taking along with its allies 288 of the country’s 298 parliamentary seats on offer.

Their thumping margin was framed as an endorsement of Hasina, 71, a dynastic leader who has overseen booming economic growth but is accused of running an authoritarian government that allows human rights abuses to spread.

Hasina on Monday rejected calls for a fresh vote, calling the election “totally free and independent”. She said: “I have nothing to hide. Whatever I do I do it for the country. My conscience is clear.”

Bangladesh election: Sheikh Hasina heads for tainted victory Read more

The Awami League’s main rival, the Bangladesh National party (BNP), and its allies won only seven seats in the country’s first fully contested election in a decade, one marred by weeks of violence, the mass arrest of opposition activists and the deaths of at least 17 party workers and police on polling day.

Allegations of voting irregularities including polling booths closing for “lunch breaks”, voters being turned away, and ballots being counted unrealistically quickly were widespread.

Local media published accounts by correspondents who claimed to have witnessed Awami League members stuffing ballot boxes in the presence of police and election officials. International monitors and press freedom groups have decried unnecessary delays in issuing visas, hampering efforts to independently observe the vote.

The opposition announced it would reject the results even before the polls had closed on Sunday.

“We call upon the election commission to declare this farcical election void and demand a fresh election under a neutral government,” said Kamal Hossain, who coordinates an alliance of opposition parties that was hoping to unseat Hasina.

Bangladesh’s election commission said it was investigating allegations of vote-rigging coming from across the country. However, the chief election commissioner KM Nurul Huda said there were no reports of large irregularities. “There is no scope to hold the election again,” Huda said, adding that voter turnout was 80%.

Jahangir Kabir Nanak, the joint secretary of the Awami League, said the opposition had been “rejected by the people of Bangladesh” and dismissed its refusal to accept voting results as “not unusual”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Bangladeshi prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, casts her vote in Dhaka with her daughter Saima Wazed Hossain (left) and her sister Sheikh Rehana. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images

“We thought they would welcome this election for a change. But they could not change their habit,” he told Reuters.

Hasina’s office told a local media outlet the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, was the first foreign leader to call with congratulations. The Awami League is traditionally more inclined towards India, the region’s major power, than the BNP.

Bangladesh’s 11th general election was the latest chapter in a history of political unrest for the country that will celebrate the half-century of its existence in two years’ time. The country freed itself in a bloody liberation war with Pakistan that still resonates and defines its political landscape.

Violence is a persistent feature of its politics and the country has alternated between fragile forms of democracy and several bouts of military rule. Its first prime minister, Hasina’s father Mujibur Rahman, was murdered in an army coup in 1975 along with most of the family while Hasina was out of the country.

For more than two decades, Hasina has traded power with Khaleda Zia, the head of the BNP whose war hero husband Ziaur Rahman was assassinated while serving as prime minister in 1981.

But Hasina has cemented her dominance in the past decade, using the state tools at her disposal to weaken the BNP and its organs, clamp down on judicial and media dissent and mostly check the country’s small but potent Islamist movement.

Zia is currently serving a prison sentence after being convicted twice this year of corruption. Her son, Tarique Rahman, is in exile in London after being sentenced to life in prison for his part in a plot to assassinate Hasina.

The BNP was also accused of perpetrating human rights abuses during its rule but rights group say Hasina’s clampdown on dissent has been more systematic and effective at hobbling her opponents.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bangladeshis queue to cast their votes in Dhaka. Photograph: Anupam Nath/AP

Her dominance has contributed to a period of relative political stability that has helped the country’s economy grow at more than 6% each year thanks largely to the garment industry that makes up more than four fifths of Bangladesh’s exports.

Foreign direct investment has remained low, however, due to poor infrastructure, corruption, policy uncertainty as well as lingering concerns about the country’s politics.

Poverty rates have fallen and the country’s GDP has grown by 150% in the past decade. But some analysts say the wealth is not spreading fast enough and has not translated into more resilient or transparent public institutions, deepening popular disquiet.

Dhaka was brought to a standstill by protests twice this year, in April over the inaccessibility of government jobs and in August by the lack of enforcement of road rules.

Clashes

Members of opposing parties clashed throughout election day. At least eight people died in scuffles between party workers, and police shot another three. A member of an auxiliary security force was also killed by BNP activists, police alleged.

About 600,000 security forces, including army and paramilitary troops, were deployed for election day.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A woman displays her inked thumb after casting her vote. Photograph: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters

Opposition alliance leader Hossain, a former associate of Hasina’s father, said last week that she had changed while in power: “The urge for power can make someone who’s human into something less than human.”