Counting began yesterday in Bangladesh’s first election since a deadly 2024 uprising, with powerful political heir Tarique Rahman bullish about defeating an Islamist-led coalition.
Leading prime ministerial hopeful Rahman, 60, said he was “confident” his Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) — which was crushed during the 15 years of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic rule — could regain power in the South Asian nation of 170 million people.
However, he faces a stiff challenge from a coalition led by the Muslim-majority country’s largest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami.
Photo: AFP
Election Commission officials reported “a few minor disruptions,” but top party leaders on both sides raised fears of threats, with Rahman calling on people to vote so that “conspiracies will not succeed.”
Jamaat head Shafiqur Rahman, 67, mounted a disciplined grassroots campaign and, if victorious, the former political prisoner could form the first Islamist-led government in constitutionally secular Bangladesh.
Jamaat, which has campaigned on justice and ending corruption, senses its biggest opportunity in decades, with its party leader saying it “will do whatever is required” to ensure a fair result.
After a slow start, crowds converged on polling stations in the capital, Dhaka, and elsewhere later in the day. By 2pm, more than 47 percent of voters had cast their ballots, the Bangladesh Election Commission said.
Polls closed at 4:30pm and the counting started right away, with the results expected today.
More than 300,000 soldiers and police were deployed countrywide, with UN experts warning ahead of voting of “growing intolerance, threats and attacks,” and a “tsunami of disinformation.”
Like millions of young voters, Shithi Goswami, 21, a student at Dhaka City College, cast her ballot for the first time.
“I hope after everything we went through the last few years, now is the time for something positive,” she said.
Most opinion polls gave the BNP the lead, although some suggest a knife-edge race.
Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin reported a “a few minor disruptions,” saying that the main threat had been a flood of disinformation on social media.
Additional reporting by AP
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