The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has been declared the winner of the country’s Thursday general elections, officials have said.
Akhtar Ahmed, senior secretary of the Election Commission, told reporters in the capital, Dhaka, on Friday that the BNP had secured 209 seats, topping a two-thirds majority in the 300-seat parliament.
Ahmed said Jamaat-e-Islami had secured 68 seats and, along with its other 10 allies, the bloc has 77 seats in the new parliament in the wake of Thursday’s elections, the first in the country’s post-Sheikh Hasina era.
The BNP and its allies bagged 212 seats in total.
Jamaat-e-Islami, however, raised questions about the counting process and threatened protests if irregularities were not addressed.
Peaceful election
Bangladesh held general elections on Thursday, the first since the 2024 popular uprising that ousted the government of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Ahmed said elections in three seats were postponed.
Early on Friday, the BNP claimed it had won a two-thirds majority in the election but cautioned against celebrations.
Hasina’s Awami League party was barred from running.
Awami League's longtime ally, the Jatiya Party, won not a single seat.
Eight other seats were taken by independents and other smaller parties.
According to the Bangladesh Election Commission, voter turnout on Thursday was 59.44 percent, up from 41.8 percent in the January 2024 elections under Hasina's government, which the BNP-Jamaat opposition boycotted.
More than 127.6 million people were eligible to vote in the election, which also included a referendum on constitutional reforms.
The 300-seat parliament has 50 more seats reserved for women, which are allotted on the basis of the vote share of the parties.
The election was largely peaceful, with at least nine deaths recorded due to various reasons.
Reform referendum
Alongside the election, people also voted in a referendum asking voters to approve or reject the July Charter, a sweeping reform blueprint drafted by the interim government’s National Consensus Commission.
According to the Election Commission, the charter was approved overwhelmingly, with over 48 million people voting yes.
The charter contains more than 80 proposals aimed at overhauling governance, including term limits for the prime minister, expanded presidential powers, protecting judicial independence, increasing women’s representation, and broader fundamental rights, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
Voter approval would require the newly elected parliament to implement the reforms within a fixed timeframe (180 working days or 270 full days), while rejection at the polls would have left their adoption to the government’s discretion.
The July Charter, referring to the popular movement of summer 2024, was endorsed by 24 political parties last October, though some provisions remain contentious.
Up to 1,400 people were killed during demonstrations that ousted Hasina's government that summer, according to UN data.
Last November, Hasina was sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity committed during the uprising.
