Hasina’s Awami League sweeps Bangladesh polls

Bangladesh's ruling Awami League today won the general election whose outcome was never in doubt as the entire opposition had boycotted the election; and ruling Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's party had already won unopposed 154 seats out of the 300 in the country's parliament.

At least 18 people were killed during Sunday's polling, while dozens have died in the run-up to the election. Reports say voter turnout was as low as 20 per cent for the seats still in contention. This is in sharp contrast to the 2008 elections when more than 70 per cent of the electorate voted.

India has reason to feel uncomfortable – by building up ties with the Hasina government, it has put itself on a cleft stick. The mandarins of South Block in New Delhi probably don't know which way to go; and given their penchant for procrastination, they will take a depressingly long time to decide on relations with its neighbour, which it helped liberate from Pakistan's dominion in 1971.

The Awami League was well on its way to form the next government today, leading with 232 seats with a few results still to be announced. It has bagged 105 seats of the 147 still on offer. The Jatiya Party, an ally of Hasina's government, took 32 seats, while 13 independent candidates won.

Hasina's refusal to heed opposition demands to step down and appoint a neutral caretaker to oversee the election led to the boycott, undermining the legitimacy of the vote. Opposition activists have staged attacks, strikes and transportation blockades in unrest that has left at least 293 people dead since last year.

On Sunday, police fired at protesters while opposition activists – led by extremist parties rather than the main opposition, the Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) - torched more than 100 polling stations.

The BNP has demanded that results be declared null and void and has called for another 48-hour general strike to begin on Monday.

Widespread violence erupted across the country on Sunday. Scores of polling stations - many of them schools - were torched, and violent clashes broke out between opposition activists and police.

All elections in Bangladesh since 1991 have been held under a neutral caretaker administration to ensure that voting is not fixed. But the Awami League abolished the caretaker system in 2010, arguing that it was no longer necessary.

Sheikh Hasina is the daughter of Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, while Khaleda Zia, leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is the widow of the party founded by her late husband President Ziaur Rahman, a former Bangladesh army general, in late 1970s.

Both ladies, bitterly opposed to each other, have alternated from government to opposition for most of the past 20 years.