Awami League President and five-time Prime Minister and Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina has vehemently condemned Thursday’s parliamentary elections as a “well-planned farce” marred by widespread irregularities that allegedly began the night before official polling.
Speaking to party workers in a virtual meeting, Sheikh Hasina said that vote rigging commenced as early as the evening of February 11, transforming what officials described as a “festive” process into a sham.
She asserted that voting activities, including ballot stuffing, sealing of boxes, and premature stamping, started in a “festive mode” from the night before the scheduled election day. She highlighted incidents across various locations where ballot boxes were filled and sealed as early as 9-10pm on February 11.
Specific examples included reports from Dhaka’s Sutrapur area, particularly Ward No. 23 at Jubli School and College polling centre, where voting was said to be underway well before February 12. She accused rival parties such as BNP and Jamaat of manipulating votes in areas beneficial to them, with some agents caught distributing money to voters or preparing fake result sheets in advance.
Drawing parallels to the 2018 elections, criticised for ballot stuffing the night before the election, Sheikh Hasina accused the current process of starting even earlier. She questioned the effectiveness of international observers in monitoring these pre-poll activities.
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Citing Election Commission figures, she noted that voter turnout was only 14.96% by 11am on February 12, with many centres—especially in Dhaka—reporting negligible or zero participation by morning.
She interpreted this as a massive public boycott, particularly by Awami League supporters, amid prior intimidation, arrests, and harassment targeting the party, its well-wishers, and minority communities.
Sheikh Hasina concluded by calling for a national awakening against what she termed the ongoing “misrule,” praying for Bangladesh’s swift liberation from irregularities and for citizens to live in peace, security, and prosperity.
Her statement detailed chaos, including gunfire over booth control between BNP and other groups, vote-buying by Jamaat leaders, and abnormal surges in voter lists in certain areas. She said polling centres were seized, ballots pre-stamped, money distributed, and result sheets signed prematurely by unauthorised agents.
She further alleged that in some cases, votes were cast from prisons with minimal participation, and overseas ballots were fraudulently stamped and returned.
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After the elections, Sheikh Hasina made several strong demands on Thursday:
– Immediate cancellation of the “voterless, illegal, and unconstitutional” election.
– Resignation of interim Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, whom she described as a “murderous fascist.”
– Release of all political prisoners, including teachers, journalists, intellectuals, and professionals, along with withdrawal of false cases against them.
– Revocation of the suspension on Awami League activities.
– Arrangement of free, fair, and fully inclusive elections under a neutral caretaker government to restore genuine voting rights.
She expressed gratitude to “the masses at all levels—including mothers, sisters, and minority communities”—for rejecting what she called a deceptive, Awami League-excluded process that disregarded democratic values and the Constitution.
She portrayed the election as illegitimate from the outset. The Awami League was barred from participating, and Sheikh Hasina, exiled in India, urged the public not to go to the polling centers.
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