Bangladesh Counts Votes After Election Without Opposition
Bangladeshi election officials counted votes Sunday after polls guaranteed to give a fifth term in office to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina closed, following a boycott led by an opposition party she branded a “terrorist organisation”.
Sheikh Hasina has presided over breakneck economic growth in a country once beset by grinding poverty, but her government has been accused of rampant human rights abuses and a ruthless opposition crackdown.
Her party faced almost no effective rivals in the seats it contested, but it avoided fielding candidates in a few constituencies, an apparent effort to avoid the legislature being branded a one-party institution.
