Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has won the country’s 10th parliamentary elections in a disputed poll that was boycotted by the opposition and its allies and held amid large-scale violence that left at least 18 dead.
Armed with a landslide “victory,” Hasina is set to form the next government even as questions are being raised about her legitimacy and the credibility of the elections. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has demanded that the polls be declared null and void. A defiant Hasina, however, has claimed that the victory is legitimate and has said the BNP “made a mistake” by shunning the polls. The BNP and some 18 other parties stayed away after Hasina refused to step down and allow the elections to be organized by a neutral caretaker government, as they had been since 1991.
Anuradha Sharma 