Dhaka: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was on Sunday elected virtually unopposed from the Gopalganj-3 constituency as she won a landslide victory, bagging 229,539 votes while her main BNP opponent could manage just 123.
The Election Commission officially announced Hasina’s win in the evening. Hasina is aiming for a record fourth term as Prime Minister with her Awami League opening up a big lead in early results following a tense vote.
She did not face much competition from her rivals as Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s S.M. Jilani secured only 123 votes, Islami Andolan Bangladesh candidate Maruf Sheikh got 71, while rest of the candidates received a mere 14 votes.
According to the EC, a total of 229,747 votes were cast.
At least 17 people were killed in election-day clashes in Bangladesh on Sunday, after a bloody campaign overshadowed a crackdown on the Opposition by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was expected to win a historic, but controversial, fourth term.
The results are expected by Monday morning which would be announced by the commission headquarters in the capital, the EC said. EC officials said they have received over a hundred complaints from candidates throughout the country about violence. At least 17 people, including a member of a security agency, have been killed in eight districts in poll-related violence, the Daily Star newspaper reported. The build-up to the election has already been marred by violence. Reports said most of the dead were ruling party activists while others were workers of opposition BNP or its allies.
Three men were shot by police while the others died in clashes between activists from the ruling Awami League Party and opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), police said.
