An alliance under Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina won a massive parliamentary majority in the country’s first polls in seven years, officials said on Tuesday, but a rival party complained of irregularities.
Analysts said it was unclear if the losers would accept the results or take their supporters on to the streets to protest, despite comments from independent monitors as well as many voters that the election appeared largely fair and credible.
Political confrontations, strikes and street violence have often hampered the effectiveness of Bangladeshi governments.
”It’s critical that both sides accept the result … If not, Bangladesh risks sliding back into the anarchy, violence and corruption that have characterised its past,” United States-based Asian Society Fellow Sheridan Prasso told Reuters.
Results from election centres around the country — not technically considered official until a formal announcement from the Election Commission — showed the ”Grand Alliance” led by Hasina’s Awami League had so far won 255 seats in the 300-seat Parliament.
With just 31 seats going so far to a group led by Begum Khaleda Zia, another former prime minister, it was the worst showing ever for her and her party, and the best for the Awami League since before independence from Pakistan in 1971.
Hasina had been widely seen as having the election edge, but the size of her landslide surprised some analysts — and could actually prove a problem for her by raising expectations she should be able to deliver on all her election promises.
”People might now think that with the biggest election success of the Awami League since 1970, Hasina will arrange for them everything she listed in the election manifesto — including cutting prices and improving the economy,” said professor Ataur Rahman, chairperson of Bangladesh Political Science Association.
”But such things would be difficult in the current global scenarios, especially the international financial crisis,” he told Reuters on Tuesday.
Hasina had pledged to contain prices and promote growth in a country of more than 140-million people where 45% of the population lives below the poverty line.
The vote on Monday returned Bangladesh to democracy after two years of emergency rule imposed by an army-backed government.
Aside from economic problems, the winner will have to tackle the endemic corruption and chronic political and social unrest that prompted the military to intervene in January 2007, cancelling an election due that month.
Hasina’s Awami League urged supporters to stay calm and not celebrate until final results are announced.
A leader of Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party said on Tuesday its supporters were kept from voting in various parts of the country, and it was filing a complaint.
”We have reports that BNP supporters were barred from coming to polls and also were driven away from polling stations in many places,” BNP leader Rizvi Ahmed said at a news briefing.
Peaceful polls
The poll was generally peaceful, with both independent monitors and many voters saying they saw few glitches. Previous elections were marred by widespread accusations of vote-rigging.
”The election ended in a very peaceful environment and I never saw such a congenial atmosphere,” Taleya Rehman, executive director of monitoring group Democracy Watch, told Reuters.
The United States also praised the vote.
”All Bangladeshis can take great pride in the success of these elections. The high voter turnout underscores the people’s desire to see democracy restored,” Gordon Duguid, State Department spokesperson, said in a statement.
Populist rivals Hasina and Khaleda alternated in power for 15 years up to 2006. Critics say they failed to resolve Bangladesh’s problems partly because of protests, strikes and street violence linked to their parties when out of office. The turbulence kept investors away and distracted government from other challenges.
Considering that background, analysts said it may be less important who won than that the losers accept the results.
Bangladesh’s neighbours worry that an increasingly violent Islamist militant minority could provide support and shelter for radicals in their own countries.
Most Bangladesh Muslims are moderates, however. Analysts said Khaleda suffered from the presence in her alliance of Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami. Its chief and other leaders lost their seats as its parliamentary members dropped from 17 to two.
Political scientist Ataur said Khaleda’s ”party was fractured and she did not have enough time for healing. She courted the Islamists ignoring popular sentiments. And apparent dislike of young voters [for her alliance] was another key factor.” – Reuters