Voters in Bangladesh will vote in a general election on Sunday that will guarantee a fifth term in office for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has called the country's main opposition party a “terrorist organization.”
The vote is being boycotted by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the main opposition party, which has denounced a “sham election”, as well as other parties that have been decimated by a massive wave of arrests in recent months.
Polling stations in the world's eighth most populous country will close at 5:00 p.m. (12:00 GMT), with results expected around midnight.
“The BNP is a terrorist organization,” Hasina told reporters in the capital Dhaka on Sunday after the vote.
“I am doing my best to ensure that democracy continues in this country,” she assured, promising “free and fair” elections.
Her party, the Awami League, has virtually no opponents in the constituencies where it contests. However, in some of them no candidates were put forward, apparently to prevent the unicameral parliament from being seen as an instrument of a single party.
In the east of the country, in Chittagong, police fired without causing injuries to disperse around sixty opposition activists who had set up a roadblock to protest the vote, Mokhlesur Rahman told AFP. , deputy police commissioner of the port city.
Initial signs point to low voter turnout. Two hours after voting began, only 111 people out of about 4,200 people registered at a polling station in western Dhaka had cast their votes, according to polling station manager Prashun Goswami.
“I have no interest in taking part in this farce,” remarked Shahriar Ahmed, a 32-year-old voter who works for a club. “I prefer to stay at home and watch movies.”
Some voters said they were threatened with confiscation of their government social security cards, which they need to receive benefits, if they refused to vote for the Awami League.
“They told me they would confiscate it if I didn't vote,” Lal Mia, 64, who votes in Faridpur district in the center of the country, told AFP. “They said since the government is feeding us, we have to vote for it.”
Arrests
The country, once plagued by extreme poverty, experienced accelerated growth under Ms. Hasina's leadership. But his government is also accused of systematic human rights violations and ruthless suppression of the opposition.
The opposition organized protests last year to demand the prime minister's resignation and promote a neutral caretaker government to oversee the election, but to no avail. She is calling for a general strike this weekend.
About 25,000 opposition leaders, including all local BNP leaders, were arrested, according to the party, in a wave of repression that followed last year's protests when several people were killed in clashes with police. The government, for its part, reported 11,000 arrests.
170 million inhabitants
The political scene in the country of 170 million has long been dominated by the rivalry between Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the country's founder, and Khaleda Zia, a two-time prime minister and wife of a former military leader.
Since returning to power in 2009, Ms. Hasina, 76, has tightened her control after two elections marred by irregularities and allegations of fraud.
Khaleda Zia, 78, was convicted of corruption in 2018 and is being held in a hospital in the capital Dhaka due to her poor health.
His son Tarique Rahman leads the BNP in his place from London, where he has lived in exile since 2008 after several convictions in his country.
Bangladesh's security forces have long been accused of excessive use of force, something the government denies.
The United States, Bangladesh's biggest export market, has sanctioned an elite police force and its commanders accused of numerous extrajudicial killings and disappearances.
The success of her economic policies has long ensured Sheikh Hasina's popularity. But the difficulties have multiplied recently, with rising prices for most basic goods and widespread power outages in 2022.
The refusal of garment workers to demand wage increases, a sector that generates 85% of the country's $55 billion in annual exports, sparked social unrest in late 2023, with factories burned and hundreds more closed.