DHAKA: Bangladesh’s elections chief quit on Thursday after denying political interference in January polls that re-elected autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina, who has since fled the country after a student-led revolution.

Kazi Habibul Awal and the country’s four other election commissioners all tendered their resignation, citing the ex-premier’s ouster as the reason for doing so.

They are the latest of several Hasina-appointed public officials to quit their posts since her departure, including the central bank boss and supreme court judges.

“I and the other commissioners intended to resign given the changed scenario of the country,” Awal told reporters.

The five commissioners presided over a January election that guaranteed Hasina a fourth consecutive term and her Awami League party and its allies a near-monopoly on seats.

The vote was marred by low turnout and was boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) after thousands of members were arrested in a pre-emptive crackdown.

Rights groups and Western governments criticised the vote as unfree and unfair.

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But Awal said the lack of genuine political opposition to Hasina meant that the vote itself was conducted with integrity.

“The main opposition party BNP and like-minded parties didn’t participate,” he said. “As it was a one-party election, there was no necessity to influence the election.”

BD protest

Bangladesh lodged a formal protest with India on Thursday over the killing of a teenage girl found shot dead near the border, the foreign ministry said, calling it a “ruthless act”.

Bangladesh “strongly protested and condemned such ruthless acts” in a protest note sent to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, according to the foreign ministry. It urged India to “stop repetition of such heinous acts”.

The protest came after Indian officers handed the body of the 13-year-old girl back to Bangladesh. Indian officials had earlier said the girl was aged 14.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2024