Bangladesh general elections: Detailed results, reactions of EC and all political parties decoded

JP(Manju)                             1

In total, Grand Alliance won 288 seats

Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)  5

Gono Forum                                      2

In total, National United Front won  7 seats

Others                                                3

There will be repolls in some of the centres in Brahmaberia-3 constituent. The result will be announced after that. 

Election was postponed for Gaibandha-3 constituency due to death of a candidate. Polling for that seat will be held on 27th January. 

(Image-AFP)

Sheikh Hasina managed to win power for record third time consecutively bettering her own record of two terms. From now, with a scattered opposition lacking leadership, it seems sky is the limit for Hasina. She just has to ensure that a proper succession plan is in place in Awami League. 

The Bangladesh economy has gained steam and the country is set to be a middle income country in next five years. Bangladesh is truly setting the example of development in South Asia. 

(Image- Press Information Department, Bangladesh)

Hasina's win follows a decade in power in which she has been credited with improving the economy and promoting development, while being accused of rights abuses, a crackdown on media and suppressing dissent.

The government rejects those accusations. The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which had boycotted the last general election in 2014 saying it would not be fair, won just six seats in the 300-seat assembly this time.

BNP leader Khaleda Zia – Hasina's arch rival and a former prime minister - was jailed in February on corruption charges she says were politically motivated. This was the first election in which the BNP campaigned without her.

Hasina told reporters the opposition had done badly in the election as it lacked leadership. She also said she was surprised the opposition had not campaigned more actively.

The rivalry between the two women - both related to former leaders - has largely defined Bangladeshi politics for decades.
Raising minimum wages for workers in Bangladesh's robust garments industry, the world's second-biggest after  China's,  could be one of Hasina's first tasks, party leaders have said.

(Image-Reuters)

Opposition leader Kamal Hossain earlier said their alliance, the National Unity Front, led by the BNP, had called on the Election Commission to order a fresh vote under a neutral administration "as soon as possible", saying the vote was flawed. 
"We've had bad elections in the past but I must say that it is unprecedented how bad this particular election was," 82-year-old Hossain told Reuters late on Sunday.
Candidates reported witnessing ballot-stuffing and vote-rigging by ruling party activists, who also barred opposition polling agents from voting centres, Hossain said.
"The minimum requirements of  free  and fair election are absent," he said.

No matter what the opposition may say, it hasn't been able to tap into the discontent among the Bangaldeshi youth against Hasina. A new generation of BNP leaders need to come in and take to the streets. It will be a gradual, painful process. But taking shortcuts like giving tickets to those who were guilty of war crimes in 1971 won't help BNP's cause. 

BNP may cry hoarse, but it needs to introspect the reasons behind its massive defeat seriously or else face complete obscurity in Bangladeshi politics. 

(Image- Reuters)

The 71-year-old chief of the Awami League was pitted against a united opposition Jatiya Oikya Front (United National Front) led by octogenarian Kamal Hossain, an Oxford-educated jurist and former foreign minister.

Her arch-rival ex-premier and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Khalida Zia, who has been serving a 17-year sentence for corruption, was barred from contesting the polls.

Born on September 28, 1947 at her parental home of Tungipara in northern Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), Hasina is the eldest among the five children of Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh.

Hasina married nuclear scientist M A Wazed Miah in 1968. Her husband died in 2009. They have one son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, and one daughter, Saima Wazed Hossain Putul. 

Though she took active interest in politics throughout her student life, Hasina formally joined the Awami League as its leader following the tragic assassination of Rahman, his wife and three sons in 1975.

While living in self-exile with her husband in India, Hasina was elected the president of the Awami League in 1981, and since then she has been the president of the party.

Ending six years in exile, she returned home on May 17, 1981. In 1983, Hasina formed an alliance to oust military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad. 

Hasina joined forces with Zia's BNP to help oust the military dictator in 1990 but the two soon fell out and their rivalry is popularly known as the "Battle of Begums".

Hasina and Zia, the 73-year-old widow of military dictator Ziaur Rahman, share a long and bitter rivalry and have alternated in power for most of the past 28 years. 

Hasina was first elected prime minister in 1996 after defeating her arch-rival Zia, who eventually regained power in 2001.

She was the first democratically elected prime minister of the country to complete the term. In 2008, Hasina returned as the prime minister with a landslide victory. In January 2014, she became the prime minister for a third term in an unopposed election as BNP boycotted the polls.

She has been in power ever since, presiding over economic expansion of more than six per cent every year since 2009. 

Since she took power in 2008, Bangladesh's per capita income has seen a threefold increase. The country's gross domestic product (GDP) stood at USD 250 billion in 2017 and it clocked a growth rate of 7.28 percent last year.

The garment industry has emerged as one of the main pillars of the economy, providing jobs to 4.5 million people. 

Hasina has been praised by her supporters for cracking down on Islamist extremists after five homegrown terrorists stormed a Dhaka cafe in 2016, killing 20 hostages, including one Indian.

She also launched trials of the powerful Islamist opposition over crimes committed during the 1971 independence war. 

Her critics, however, have described her as an authoritarian since she pushed on with an uncontested general election in 2014.

Her opponents accuse her of crushing the opposition and creating a one-party dominant political system in Bangladesh. Hasina will serve as the prime minister for the fourth term - a record for any Bangladeshi leader since the country came into existence in 1971.

(Image- Reuters)