B'desh PM set for 5th term after Oppn boycotts election

Bangladesh Nationalist Party, whose ranks have been decimated by mass arrests, had called a general strike and urged the public not to participate in a sham’ election

Bangladesh's Minister Sheikh Hasina has won re-election for a fifth term on Sunday following an opposition boycott, with her party taking at least half of seats and counting ongoing, an election official said. "The ruling Awami League party has won more than 50% seats," an Election Commission spokesman told AFP.

Of the 264 seats of the total 300 announced, Hasina's Awami League had won 204 and her allied Jatiya Party nine more, according to results collated by Somoy TV, the country's largest private news broadcaster.

Hasina won the Gopalganj-3 seat for the eighth time since 1986. She bagged 249,965 votes while her nearest rival M Nizam Uddin Lashkar from the Bangladesh Supreme Party secured just 469 votes, bdnews24 reported.