Bangladesh counts votes after election under boycott, without opposition

Bangladesh election officials have begun counting votes after polls guaranteed to give a fifth term in office to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina closed, following a boycott led by an opposition party she branded a "terrorist organisation".

"Vote counting has begun," election commission spokesman Shariful Alam said on Sunday.

Results are expected as early as Monday morning.

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

Her party faces almost no effective rivals in the seats it is contesting but has avoided fielding candidates in a few seats, an apparent effort to avoid the legislature being branded a one-party institution.

The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, whose ranks have been decimated by mass arrests, is leading a weekend general strike urging the public not to participate in what it calls a "sham" election.

But Hasina, 76, urged the public to cast their ballots and show their faith in the democratic process.

"The BNP is a terrorist organisation," she told waiting reporters after casting her vote at the Dhaka City College alongside her sister and daughter. "I am trying my best to ensure that democracy should continue in this country," she added.

But Hasina, 76, urged the public to cast their ballots and show their faith in the democratic process.

'Farce' election

Early signs suggested turnout would be low, despite widespread reports of carrot-and-stick inducements aimed at bolstering the poll's legitimacy.

At noon, according to Election Commission Secretary Jahangir Alam, turnout stood at 18.5 percent.

Many said they had not voted because the outcome was assured.

"When one party is participating and another is not, why would I go to vote?" said Mohammad Saidur, 31, who pulls a rickshaw.

"We all know who's going to win," said Farhana Manik, 27, a student.

Charity worker Shahriar Ahmed, 32, called the election a "farce" and did not vote. "I would rather stay home and watch movies," Ahmed said.

BNP head Tarique Rahman, speaking from Britain where he lives in exile, said he worried about ballot stuffing. "I fear that the election commission may increase voter turnout by using fake votes," he said.

Some voters said earlier they had been threatened with the confiscation of government benefit cards needed to access welfare payments if they refused to cast ballots for the ruling Awami League.

"They said since the government feeds us, we have to vote for them," Lal Mia, 64, told AFP in the central district of Faridpur.

The BNP and other parties staged months of protests last year demanding Hasina step down ahead of the vote.

Around 25,000 opposition cadres including the BNP's entire local leadership were arrested in the ensuing crackdown, the party says. The government puts the figure at 11,000.

Scattered protests continued in the days ahead of the election, including a few hundred opposition supporters who marched through central Dhaka on Friday — a shadow of the hundreds of thousands seen at rallies last year.

The election commission said around 175,000 police officers and more than 515,000 members of the Ansar reserve force had been deployed to keep order during the vote.

Old rivalry

Politics in the world's eighth-most populous country was long dominated by the rivalry between Hasina, the daughter of the country's founding leader, and two-time premier Khaleda Zia, wife of a former military ruler.

Hasina, 76, has been the decisive victor since returning to power in a 2009 landslide, with two subsequent polls accompanied by widespread irregularities and accusations of rigging.

Zia, 78, was convicted of graft in 2018 and is now in ailing health at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, with her son Tarique Rahman helming the BNP in her stead from exile in London.

Rahman said that his party, along with dozens of others, had refused to participate in a "sham election."

'Dangerous combination'

Hasina has accused the BNP of arson and sabotage during last year's protest campaign, which was mostly peaceful but saw several people killed in police confrontations.

Her government's security forces have long been dogged by allegations of excessive use of force — charges it denies.

The United States, the biggest export market for the South Asian nation of 170 million, has imposed sanctions on an elite police unit and its top commanders accused of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.

Economic headwinds have left many dissatisfied with Hasina's government, after sharp spikes in food costs and months of chronic blackouts in 2022.

Wage stagnation in the garment sector, which accounts for around 85 percent of the country's $55 billion in annual exports, sparked industrial unrest late last year that saw some factories torched and hundreds more shuttered.

Pierre Prakash of the International Crisis Group said Hasina's government was clearly "less popular than it was a few years ago, yet Bangladeshis have little real outlet at the ballot box."

"That is a potentially dangerous combination."