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Bangladeshi polling officials count votes after the voting ended at a polling station in Munshiganj, outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, January 7, 2024
TURNOUT plunged in Bangladesh’s general election today as major opposition parties called for a boycott of the “one-sided farce.”
Authorities said about 40 per cent of eligible voters participated, down from 80 per cent in the last general election in 2018.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is bound to win a fourth consecutive term given the boycott, but opposition parties including the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and the Left Democratic Front, which includes the Communist Party, say the vote would not have been fair in any case, citing mass arrests of opposition politicians. BNP leader Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister, is under house arrest.
A New Delhi press conference in which Sheikh Hasina and her son implied the new order in Bangladesh is a security threat to India has sparked fears she is planning a comeback. SIAM SAROWER JAMIL reports on the fallout
