Bangladesh Nationalist Party and allies secured 212 seats while Jamaat-e-Islami party-led bloc won 77 seats, according to Election Commission. Jamaat-e-Islami is raising questions around the counting
By SM Najmus Sakib and Saadet Gokce
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been declared the winner of the country’s general elections, officials said.
Akhtar Ahmed, senior secretary of the Election Commission, told reporters in the capital Dhaka on Friday that the BNP had secured 209 seats, topping a two-thirds majority in the 300-seat parliament.
Ahmed said Jamaat-e-Islami had secured 68 seats and along with its other 10 allies, the bloc has 77 seats in the new parliament in the wake of Thursday’s elections, the first in the country’s post-Sheikh Hasina era.
The BNP and its allies bagged 212 seats in total.
Jamaat-e-Islami, however, raised questions about the counting process and threatened protests if irregularities were not addressed.
Bangladesh held general elections on Thursday, the first since the 2024 popular uprising that ousted the government of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Ahmed said elections on three seats were postponed.
Early Friday, the BNP claimed it had won a two-thirds majority in the election, but cautioned against celebrations.
Hasina’s Awami League party was barred from running.
Awami League’s longtime ally, the Jatiya Party, won not a single seat.
Eight other seats were taken by independents and other smaller parties.
According to the Bangladesh Election Commission, voter turnout on Thursday was 59,44%, up from 41,8% in the January 2024 elections under Hasina’s government, which the BNP-Jamaat opposition boycotted.
More than 127,6 million people were eligible to vote in the election, which also included a referendum on constitutional reforms.
The 300-seat parliament has 50 more seats reserved for women, which are allotted on the basis of vote share of the parties.
The election was largely peaceful, with at least nine deaths recorded due to various reasons. – Anadulo Agency