Tarique Rahman
DHAKA: Tarique Rahman-led BNP was cruising to the midway mark of 150 – profitable 120 of the 300 parliamentary seats and main in 55 extra – forsaking its rival and Bangladesh’s largest Islamist occasion, Jamaat-e-Islami, on Thursday, as counting was below means after Bangladeshis voted within the first nationwide election for the reason that 2024 ‘July Rebellion’ ousted long-time PM Sheikh Hasina. The turnout, nevertheless, was simply 47%. By midnight, it had taken an unassailable lead over the hardline anti-India Jamaat and its allies – trailing with 38 seats – within the contest to elect a brand new govt to exchange the Muhammad Yunus-led interim govt. Yunus took cost after the collapse of the Hasina-led Awami League dispensation – a celebration banned from contesting the ballot and its image, the boat, lacking from poll papers for the primary time in 30 years.
BNP chairman Rahman, who has received from each constituencies he contested – Bogra and Dhaka-17 – would possible take over as the following PM: an final result that India can dwell with. BNP, which was distinguished by its unfriendly place in direction of India due to its arch-rival Awami League’s pleasant disposition in direction of New Delhi, nevertheless, has mellowed down hostility. India opened a channel with BNP with the presence of overseas minister S Jaishankar on the funeral of former PM Khaleda Zia final 12 months in Dhaka.Nevertheless, the turnout within the ballot was solely 47% as voting closed at 4.30pm a quantity, analysts termed “unimpressive for a full-fledged election amid the interim govt’s repeated claims that it might be ‘free, honest and inclusive and pave the way in which for a brand new Bangladesh’”.Hasina known as the overall election “a wellplanned farce” by the Yunus administration and mentioned that “this extraordinarily low turnout clearly exhibits that an Awami League-free election was broadly rejected by the folks”.Solely twice has the voting proportion been beneath 50% lately, and on each events, the opposition didn’t take part alleging the potential of rigging by the Hasina govt, analysts mentioned, citing the 2014 ballot, when it was 40%, and in 2024, when it was 42%. Within the 2008 basic election, a turnout of 87% was reported, and in 2018, it was over 80%.In the meantime, the chief of Jamaat-e-Islami occasion, Shafiqur Rahman instructed reporters, on Thursday that his occasion wouldn’t do “politics of opposition” for the sake of it, in a sign that he was conceding the nationwide election as votes have been being counted. “We’ll do optimistic politics,” Rahman mentioned.Polling was held in 299 seats because the one of many candidates of the Sherpur-3 constituency died. Voting for the thirteenth parliamentary election was held together with a referendum on a fancy 84-point reform bundle that sought folks’s consent to reform proposals known as the ‘July Nationwide Constitution 2025’. Voters have been ‘instructed’ to vote ‘sure’ in the event that they agreed extra strongly with the proposals and ‘no’ in the event that they disagreed.The dual elections have been held largely in a peaceable environment with some remoted incidents of violence and with a comparatively “low presence” of voters from minority communities, significantly Hindus, amid a sequence of assaults on them for the reason that Hasina govt’s fall in 2024.“I’d not say voters from the minority communities have been absent. However the quantity could be only a few. Their presence was low. We’re assessing the state of affairs,” a distinguished minority chief mentioned quoting reviews collected by minority organisations from throughout Bangladesh.
