Bangladesh

The Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, has been re-elected in Sunday’s parliamentary elections. Hasina’s party, the Awami League, has won at least half of the seats in parliament, a spokesman for the election commission told AFP. Sheikh Hasina was expected to serve a second five-year term as prime minister, as the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has refused to stand in the elections.
     So far, the Awami League has won 204 of parliament’s 300 seats, according to AFP citing the TV channel Somoy TV. The BNP boycott is mainly due to several thousand of its members having been imprisoned ahead of the elections because the prime minister accuses the BNP of being a terrorist organisation. Several other and smaller opposition parties are backing the boycott, effectively leaving the Awami League alone in power. Sheikh Hasina, 76, has ruled for four terms. At the latest from 2009 to now. /ritzau/Dhaka Tribune/