Fear stalks Bangladesh as vote 'farce' begins - Yahoo NewsDhaka (AFP) - Bangladesh voted Sunday in a...

1. utf8_encode(Polls open in violence-plagued Bangladesh
election)
Fear stalks Bangladesh as vote 'farce' begins - Yahoo News
Dhaka (AFP) - Bangladesh voted Sunday in a violence-plagued election that will end in certain
victory for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after the opposition boycotted the "farcical" contest.
Around 150 people have been killed since the opposition launched a campaign against the election in
October while more than a thousand opposition leaders and activists have been detained in a
crackdown denounced by rights groups.
A huge security operation involving 50,000 troops has been mounted to ensure the eight hours of
voting passes off smoothly after it began at 8:00 am (0200 GMT).
But after scores of arson attacks on polling stations and with the opposition trying to enforce a
general strike, officials admit turnout could be worse than the previous low of 26 percent in a rigged
1996 election.
AFP correspondents in the capital Dhaka said there was no sign of queues outside the polling
stations when they opened and fresh reports of deadly violence will have only added to the fear
factor.
Police said that a polling officer was beaten to death in the northern district of Thakurgaon on
Saturday night while a truck driver died after his vehicle was firebombed on Friday.

2. View gallery
Graphic factfile on Bangladesh, which holds
elections on January 5, 2014 (AFP Photo/-)
Hundreds of buses and other vehicles have been firebombed in recent weeks with the opposition and
government blaming each other for the violence.
"Voting is a right, I am exercising that right, but there is no sense of celebration today," said Nurul
Islam, as he voted in Mirpur, a Dhaka suburb.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose leader Khaleda Zia has been
confined to her home, decided to boycott the poll after Hasina refused to stand aside and let it be
organised by a neutral caretaker government.

3. With the opposition charging that the election lacks all credibility, analysts warn it will likely fuel
violence in a country that has already seen its bloodiest year of political unrest since Bangladesh
broke free from Pakistan in 1971.
The former East Pakistan is the world's eighth most populous nation but also one of the poorest in
Asia and more turmoil will undermine efforts to improve the lot of its 154 million population. A third
of them live below the poverty line.
View gallery
Burnt material lies inside a Bangladeshi
election polling centre in Dinajpur, some 360 km north of t ...
Hasina, who beat two-time premier Zia in a December 2008 election, has accused her bitter rival of
snubbing attempts to reach a consensus on the electoral framework.
"She held the country hostage in the name of strikes and blockades," Hasina said in her final preelection address.
Zia in turn says the polls cannot be fair as long as they are overseen by Hasina, calling what is
effectively a one-party contest a "scandalous farce".
Both women, who have a notoriously poisonous relationship, blame each others' supporters for the
violence which has capped a year of political unrest.
A local rights group says more than 500 people have been killed since January 2013, a toll that
includes victims of clashes between the security forces and Islamists angered by the conviction of
some of their leaders for war crimes dating back to the 1971 conflict.
View gallery
Local laundry workers wash clothes in the
Buriganga river in Dhaka, on January 4, 2014 (AFP Photo/Mu ...
The main Islamist party has been banned by the courts from taking part in the election and its
leaders are either in detention or have gone into hiding.
Alarmed by the violence as well as being "disappointed" by the BNP's boycott, the United States has
declined to send observers as have the European Union and Commonwealth.

4. The result is not in doubt as 153 of the 300 parliamentary seats are not being contested, giving a
free run to Awami League members or their allies.
The mass-selling Daily Star called it "a one-sided general election that is unlikely to end the present
political crisis", saying in an editorial Sunday that the victors would be "devoid of any public
mandate".
The Dhaka Tribune warned the Awami League not to interpret its inevitable victory as an
endorsement from the public and said all parties needed to open dialogue as soon as possible.
"The results cannot and should not be viewed as a mandate to rule for a full term," it said in an
editorial.
In total, 21 opposition parties have refused to take part in what is the 10th election in Bangladesh's
troubled post-independence history.
It has already endured nearly 20 coups since 1975 and Hasina's powerful son evoked the spectre of
another coup in a Facebook post this week when he railed against a "third force" of intellectuals.
Politics & GovernmentElectionsBangladesh
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