Bangladesh | Sheikh Hasina, who called the opposition a “terrorist organization”, is becoming prime minister for the fifth time

in Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina is already heading into his fifth term as prime minister. A spokesman for the country's election commission announced that Hasina's AL party has won more than half of the parliamentary seats in today's elections.

According to the Election Commission, the AL party won more than two-thirds of the 300 seats in the parliament.

Under Hasina, the economy of Bangladesh, which was previously plagued by poverty, has experienced exceptional growth. However, his government has been accused of human rights abuses and suppression of the opposition.

The opposition has boycotted the country's parliamentary elections.

Before the elections, mass arrests thinned the ranks of the leading opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The party urged the people not to vote in the elections, which it described as fraudulent.

On election day 76-year-old Sheikh Hasina, on the other hand, urged voters to the ballot box and described the opposition in very harsh terms.

“BNP is a terrorist organisation,” Hasina told reporters as she left her own vote in Dhaka with her sister and daughter.

“I will try to do my best to ensure that democracy continues in this country,” he added.

In the port city of Chittagong, police said they had to fire shots today to disperse a group of opposition activists protesting the election. Activists had set up a roadblock by burning car tires. According to the police, there were about sixty members of the opposition. No one was reported injured.

The polling stations closed at five in the evening local time, i.e. at one in the afternoon Finnish time.

Polling frenzy remained low, even though efforts have allegedly been made to increase the credibility of the elections with the help of various incentives and threats. According to the Election Commission, the voting percentage was around 40.

According to reporters from the news agency AFP, at a polling station in the capital Dhaka, only three people had cast their votes in the first 30 minutes.

Some voters had previously said that they had been threatened with confiscation of the benefit cards needed to receive social payments if they refused to vote for the AL party.

“They said they would confiscate it from me if I didn't vote,” the 64-year-old Lal Mia told AFP in Faridpur, in the central part of the country.

“They said that since the government feeds us, we have to vote them out.

According to the Election Commission, around 175,000 police and more than 515,000 members of the Ansar reserve force have been deployed to maintai
n order during Sunday's voting.

The BNP and other parties organized numerous demonstrations last year demanding Hasina's resignation.

According to the BNP, around 25,000 opposition representatives, including the leadership of local BNP branches, were arrested in the crackdown that followed the protests. The government said there were 11,000 people arrested.

World the eighth most populous country's political scene was long dominated by Hasina, who served as prime minister twice Khaleda Zian competition between

Hasina is the daughter of the founder and first president of Bangladesh. Zia, on the other hand, is the general of the former leader of Bangladesh By Ziaur Rahman widow.

Zia, who led the BNP, became prime minister in 1991. Hasina, on the other hand, served her first term as prime minister from 1996 to 2001.

After this, Zia returned to power, but after the 2008 election victory, Hasina again became the prime minister. He has since been elected twice for an extended term in elections, both of which have been accompanied by accusations of abuses and election tampering.

Zia, 78, was convicted of fraud in 2018 and is currently hospitalized in Dhaka due to several health problems. The BNP is currently led from London by Zia's son in exile Tarique Rahman.

Rahman told AFP that his party and dozens of other parties refuse to participate in the sham election.

Election officials counted votes in Dhaka. Picture: Hab / ZUMA