Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has won with 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.
Media 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.A victory for the 76-year-old Hasina, the country’s longest-serving leader and one of its most consequential, would come with a deeply contentious political landscape.
The vote, like previous elections, has been defined by the bitter rivalry between Hasina’s Awami League and the BNP, led by Zia, who is ailing and under house arrest on corruption charges, which her supporters claim are politically motivated.
The two women ran the country alternately for many years, cementing a feud that has since polarized Bangladesh’s politics and fueled violence around elections.
This year’s vote raised questions over its credibility when there are no major challengers to take on the incumbent.
