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Hasina takes massive majority in Bangladesh
Tue Dec 30, 2008 12:02am EST
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By Anis Ahmed
DHAKA (Reuters) - An alliance under Bangladesh's former prime minister Sheikh Hasina won a massive parliamentary majority in the country's first polls in seven years, officials said on Tuesday, but a rival party complained of irregularities.
Analysts said it was unclear if the losers would accept the results or take their supporters onto the streets to protest, despite comments from independent monitors as well as many voters that the election appeared largely fair and credible.
Political confrontations, strikes and street violence have often hampered the effectiveness of Bangladeshi governments.
"It's critical that both sides accept the result ... If not, Bangladesh risks sliding back into the anarchy, violence and corruption that have characterized its past," U.S.-based Asian Society Fellow Sheridan Prasso told Reuters.
Results from election centers around the country -- not technically considered official until a formal announcement from the Election Commission -- showed the "Grand Alliance" led by Hasina's Awami League had so far won 255 seats in the 300-seat parliament.
With just 31 seats going so far to a group led by Begum Khaleda Zia, another former prime minister, it was the worst showing ever for her and her party, and the best for the Awami League since before independence from Pakistan in 1971.
Hasina had been widely seen as having the election edge, but the size of her landslide surprised some analysts -- and could actually prove a problem for her by raising expectations she should be able to deliver on all her election promises.
"People might now think that with the biggest election success of the Awami League since 1970, Hasina will arrange for them everything she listed in the election manifesto -- including cutting prices and improving the economy," said professor Ataur Rahman, chairman of Bangladesh Political Science Association.
"But such things would be difficult in the current global scenarios, especially the international financial crisis," he told Reuters on Tuesday.
Hasina had pledged to contain prices and promote growth in a country of more than 140 million people where 45 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
The Monday vote returned Bangladesh to democracy after two years of emergency rule imposed by an army-backed government.
Aside from economic problems, the winner will have to tackle the endemic corruption and chronic political and social unrest that prompted the military to intervene in January 2007, cancelling an election due that month.
Hasina's Awami League urged supporters to stay calm and not celebrate until final results are announced.
A leader of Khaleda's Bangladesh Nationalist Party said on Tuesday its supporters were kept from voting in various parts of the country, and it was filing a complaint.
"We have reports that BNP supporters were barred from coming to polls and also were driven away from polling stations in many places," BNP leader Rizvi Ahmed said at a news briefing. Continued...
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