Sheikh Hasina, the leader of Bangladesh, won the election for the fourth time in a row, even though some people had concerns about how the election was handled.
Ms Hasina’s party, the Awami League, and its friends won 223 out of 300 seats in the election. This means Ms. Hasina will be the leader for the next five years.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party is not going to participate in the election, so it is expected that Ms Hasina’s party and their friends will win all the seats.
The BNP said the poll was not fair.
On Sunday, many BNP leaders and supporters were arrested before the result.
According to the official numbers, only about 40% of people voted, but some people think that even those numbers might be too high. In 2018, more than 80% of the eligible voters participated in the election.
Political expert Badiul Alam Majumder said to the BBC that the election commission was increasing the number of voters who turned up to vote. “He said that the number of people who voted, reported by the election commission, doesn’t seem accurate compared to what we have seen from various sources and media reports. ”
Independents, most of them from the Awami League, won 45 seats and the Jatiya Party won eight seats. The results will be announced on Monday.
Ms Hasina is serving her fifth term as prime minister. She first became prime minister in 1996 and was re-elected in 2009. She has been in power ever since.
“I am doing everything I can to make sure that democracy stays in this country,” she said to reporters when she voted.
Awami League leader Obaidul Quader said that Ms Hasina told party members not to have parades or parties to celebrate their win.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) thinks that almost 10,000 activists were arrested after a protest on 28 October got violent. At least 16 people died and more than 5,500 were hurt. It said the government is putting the Awami League’s political enemies in prison.
The Awami League said they did not do the things people accused them of doing.
Some people are worried that the Awami League winning again might lead to one party having too much power.
Not many people think the government will ease its strict measures, especially if opposition parties and civil society groups keep questioning its legitimacy.
The BNP did not participate in the election because the Awami League did not agree to their request for a separate person to run the election.
Tarique Rahman, the acting chairman of the BNP, said in an email from London where he has lived since 2008, that our peaceful and non-violent movement will keep going strong.
Mr Rahman, the son of Ms Hasina’s enemy, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, also said that BNP party workers did not start fires before the election.
Ms Zia is not allowed to leave her house because she is accused of being involved in corrupt activities.
In 2018, Mr Rahman was found guilty of planning a grenade attack at a political event in 2004. He was not present at the trial and was given a life sentence in prison. Ms Hasina got hurt and at least 20 other people died in that event.
“He said that the accusations against me are not true and are based on political revenge. ”
The BNP told people not to vote.
Ms Hasina’s supporters say she has brought much-needed political stability to Bangladesh.
We kept using the democratic process that has given us political stability. Law Minister Anisul Huq thinks that the world should give credit to Sheikh Hasina for that.
Ms Hasina’s biggest accomplishment in the last 15 years is that she has made the people of Bangladesh feel more confident. “They have started to believe in themselves,” he said.
Bangladesh looks different under Ms Hasina. The country with mostly Muslim people used to be very poor, but it has done well economically since 2009 because of its leader.
It is now one of the fastest-growing economies in the area, even doing better than its big neighbor India. The amount of money each person makes has gone up three times in the last ten years and the World Bank thinks that more than 25 million people have been helped out of being poor in the last 20 years. It is also the second biggest maker of clothes in the world, after China.
But in the middle of 2022, the economy became very troubled because of the pandemic and a worldwide slowdown.
The government might have trouble dealing with the problems that come from higher prices and the terms of a loan from the IMF.
Other countries are starting to put pressure on us too.
In September, the US started stopping Bangladeshi officials from getting visas if they were found to be interfering with the country’s democratic election.
The UN and other groups are worried about people being mistreated and not allowed to speak up.
But Hasina knows that as long as India supports her, she can prevent any big punishments from the West.
Rich countries know that if they take away benefits from Bangladesh’s clothing industry, it would affect many workers, especially women.
Ms Hasina became the prime minister of the country in 1996 for the first time. She got elected again in 2009 and has been in charge ever since, making her the leader of Bangladesh for the longest time.
At the end of her time as prime minister, she will be 81 years old. Many people in Bangladesh, including supporters of the Awami League, are wondering who will take her place.
Some experts say that the election outcome was obvious, but what comes next is not sure.