Bangladesh Polls: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wins Fourth Straight Term (Image: X @albd1971)

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina secured a record fourth straight term in the national election that was conducted on Sunday. Sheikh Hasina retained her title as the world’s longest-serving female head of government as her Awami League party secured two-thirds of the seats in the elections amid opposition parties’ boycott.

The Awami League, under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, won 165 seats out of 224 in the election, reported Reuters. Notably, the general election was held in 299 out of 300 parliamentary seats, and the outcome of the rest of the seats is still unannounced. Meanwhile, local media reports claimed that Awami League candidates secured victory in 227 out of 298 parliamentary seats. The report also said that independent candidates have won in more than 50 constituencies in the country. At the same time, Reuters also reported that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina secured 249,962 votes from the Gopalganj constituency, which is about 165 kilometres from the capital, Dhaka. Notably, her nearest rival was reportedly able to get only 469 votes. Sheikh Hasina first became prime minister of Bangladesh in 1996, and it will be her fifth term overall.

Critics in the country mainly accuse Sheikh Hasina of authoritarianism and human rights violations. Bangladesh, the South Asian country of 170 million people, witnessed the landslide victory of Sheikh Hasina”s Awami League party amid a boycott by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and some smaller allies. Chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal earlier said that the turnout was about 40 percent when polls closed. It is worth mentioning that the overall turnout was more than 80 percent in the previous election in 2018. The BNP had also called a two-day strike nationwide through Sunday, asking people to shun the election. The opposition also said that the low turnout was a success for their boycott call.