Sheikh Hasina has secured her fifth term as Bangladesh’s prime minister in an election whose outcome was decided the moment her schedule was announced in early November, when the main opposition boycotted the polls.
The surprise was who came in second place.
Instead of any political party, independent candidates won a total of 45 seats, the second highest after Hasina’s Awami League (AL), which won 152, creating the problem of finding a parliamentary opposition.
The current opposition, the Jatiya Party, managed to win only eight of the 300 parliamentary seats.
Almost all of the winning independent contenders were people who had been rejected by the American League but were asked by party leaders to run as “dummy candidates” to give the elections a competitive veneer for the world.
“This is a strange result of a strange election,” Shahidul Alam, a renowned Bangladeshi photographer and human rights activist, told Al Jazeera. “Fictional candidates in a fictitious election will now lead to a fictitious parliament.”
Rejected by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the AL’s main political opponent, which wanted the elections to be held under a neutral entity rather than Hasina’s administration, Sunday’s “unilateral elections” were just a “mere formality” to return Hasina to power. again, analysts say.
The only suspense, they added, was voter turnout, after Western governments pressured Hasina’s government to ensure a free, fair and participatory election.
After polls closed at 4:00 p.m. (10:00 GMT Sunday), the Electoral Commission (EC) said turnout was 40 percent.
But many doubted it was that high.
“I don’t know about the rest of the country, but I don’t think I’ve seen Dhaka so empty in years,” Abdullah Yusuf, an engineer in the Dhanmondi area of the capital, told Al Jazeera.
“It seemed like the early days of COVID. I crossed two polling stations at noon and didn’t see many people apart from Awami League activists wearing badges. The EC claim of 40 per cent is quite absurd.”
‘Ridiculous’
Meanwhile, some analysts pointed to confusion in the EC’s announcement.
“It is hard to believe that the turnout was 40 percent, especially considering the fact that the chief election commissioner himself first said 28 percent while briefing the media and then changed it to 40 percent suddenly,” said Sakhawat Hossain, former election commissioner. .
The turnout figure, displayed on the board at EC headquarters hours after the briefing, was 28 percent, and a photo of it was widely circulated on social media in the country and received criticism. Al Jazeera checked and verified that figure.
An hour before polls closed, the European Commission had declared that turnout had been around 27 percent. Al Jazeera visited at least 10 polling stations in the capital Dhaka in the past hour and did not see any voters.
Sharmin Murshid, head of the prestigious election observation organization Brotee, told Al Jazeera that a jump from 27 to 40 in the space of about an hour was “ridiculous” and had “seriously tarnished the reputation of the EC”.
“It was a sure way to further lose people’s trust and credibility that I didn’t have at the beginning,” he said. “This was not an election, but rather a vote-casting exercise by a party for a party,” she added.
Meanwhile, BNP leaders rated even 28 percent as too high, claiming that most polling stations across the country had been empty all day. The opposition party earlier declared a 48-hour “hartal,” equivalent to an all-out strike, starting Saturday morning, which it said also reduced turnout.
“In most of the images and videos shared on media and social platforms, one finds photos of dogs standing, lying and sunbathing along with police and some Awami League activists,” said Abdul Moyeen Khan, a senior leader. of the BNP, informing journalists after the elections: “But there are no voters.”
Khan said people had heeded his call to boycott the ballots and show a “red card” to the elections.
“Even Awami League supporters did not bother to go to the booths to cast their votes because they knew their candidates would win anyway,” he added.
Legitimacy concerns
AL leaders, however, said the BNP’s plan to thwart the elections through “hartal” and “arson attacks” had not worked as people turned out to vote.
“This is a victory for our democracy,” Obaidul Quader told the media after finding a clear lead in the poll results, “people are giving BNP terrorism a befitting response through voting.”
Quader also said that most people voted for their preferred candidates without any intimidation or interference in voting. “This was one of the most peaceful elections in the country,” he said.
While the last two national elections were plagued by dozens of deaths and serious violence, Sunday’s election saw only one death and very few clashes, making it one of the most peaceful elections in the southern nation’s history. from Asia.
“The people of your country should be proud to hold such peaceful elections,” Hisham Kuhail, executive director of the Palestinian Central Election Commission, one of several foreign observers of the elections, said at a later news conference.
Kuhail, however, avoided questions about voter participation and said he was assessing only the technical aspects of the voting process: whether voters were allowed access and whether voting was carried out systematically.
“I cannot comment here on the political scenario. For that I need to stay at least a month,” he added.
Russian observer Andrei Shutov also stated that the voting process was systematic and peaceful. “This election is legitimate,” he added.
AKM Wahiduzzaman, BNP information and technology affairs secretary, said there was no doubt it was peaceful because “there were no voters”.
“But it’s obviously not legitimate,” he said.
The Awami League’s victory, he added, was “illegal and illegitimate” because people did not “legitimize it through voting.”
