Strong turnout for Bangladesh election

BANGLADESH: Tens of millions of Bangla-deshis streamed to the polls on Monday for an election that returns the country to democracy after two years of emergency rule and tests whether it has moved beyond a history of political violence.

An alliance led by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League has the edge in the vote for 300 parliament seats, most observers say. Others predict neither she nor rival and fellow ex-PM Begum Khaleda Zia will win an outright majority.

Hasina cast her vote at a Dhaka college half an hour after polling started at 8 a.m. (0200 GMT). Khaleda was expected to vote at a different station.

“Voting is people’s constitutional right and I am happy to be able to exercise it,” Hasina told reporters. “We have waited so long ... but (are) feeling good the election is held at last.”

The outgoing army-backed interim government took over amidst political violence in January 2007 and cancelled a parliamentary election due that month, making the Monday poll the first in seven years.

Voting was peaceful and turnout heavy in an almost festive atmosphere across the country, Reuters reporters on the scene said. Hundreds of voters waited in line at some stations.

“This is real fun to vote for the first time,” said new voter Mujtahidur Rahman at a Dhaka centre.

Past Bangladesh elections have been marred by fraud and intimidation, but polling official Shameem Hasan said: “We are conducting the vote in a free atmosphere. No one is putting any pressure on us.”

“People are coming to cast their ballots spontaneously. I had no problem at all,” said Shilpi Das, 35, in northeastern Sylhet city, as she emerged from voting.

Witnesses said turnout of both male and female voters was heavy. “I did not expect such a long line so early,” said Nurul Haq, 65, in northern Rangpur district.

Despite the queue and winter cold that had him shivering, Haq said he was still enjoying the voting experience.

Impoverished Bangla-desh, a South Asian nation of more than 140 million, has a history of questionable elections, sporadic periods of military rule and politically motivated violence.

Post-vote turbulence, whether tied to jockeying for position in a hung parliament or to street violence, could get in the way of a new government tackling such challenges as reducing corruption and improving the economy in a nation where some 45 percent of the people live below the poverty line.

For the voting itself, about 200,000 local and 2,000 foreign monitors are at the polling centres to check procedures.

The latter include first-time-ever anti-cheating measures like picture ID cards for the 81 million eligible voters.

Officials in northern Bangladesh said they had detained around 30 people on Sunday night for trying to “buy votes” for various candidates.

In eastern Brahmanbaria district, a rural council chairman, Mohammad Jahangir, told Reuters by telephone: “There is no lack of enthusiasm. Security has been tight with police guarding the polling centres since Sunday night.”

The government has deployed 50,000 troops, 75,000 police and 6,000 members of its elite Rapid Action Battalion along with other auxiliary forces for security.

“In some sensitive areas we have also kept bomb disposal squads on standby,” a senior police officer said on Monday, declining to specify the locations.

Some analysts are concerned that even if the election itself goes smoothly, disgruntled backers of the losers will turn to confrontation as a tactic, as happened in the past.

Leading candidates Hasina and Khaleda alternated in power for 15 years through to 2006.

DhakA, Monday, Reuters