Bangladesh voters go to the polls in one-sided election marred by violence
Violence has been reported in Bangladesh as 120 million people vote in a general election that has a foregone conclusion.
There have been a total of 18 arson attacks, including 10 on polling booths in the 48 hours before Sunday, authorities said.
On Friday, four people including one child were killed when a passenger train heading towards the capital, Dhaka, was set on fire.
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Four dead after fire on Bangladesh train
A total of 120 million people are eligible to vote in Sunday’s election – which will grant Sheikh Hasina a fifth term in office, her fourth consecutive one.
The 76-year-old will then be the longest-serving head of state in Bangladesh‘s history.
The main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Khaleda Zia, has boycotted the election after demanding Ms Hasina steps down to make way for a caretaker government that could organise a fair vote.
Their call was met with a severe government crackdown, which saw at least 11 BNP members killed and tens of thousands arrested by security forces during protests last year.
Bangladesh’s national parliament, the Jatiya Sangsad, has 350 MPs, of which 300 will be elected in Sunday’s vote.
The remaining 50 seats are reserved for women selected by the ruling party or coalition government.
The election result will be declared on Monday, though nobody is in doubt about who the winner will be.
A woman carries her child while voting
Awami League, the ruling party, has dominated the country’s political landscape for decades.
Ms Hasina, the daughter of the country’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, has been praised for making its $416bn (£327bn) economy one of the fastest growing in the world.
She has also won international praise for sheltering nearly one million Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in neighbouring Myanmar.
Bangladesh is one of the largest ready-made garment exporters and clothing accounts for more than 80% of the country’s exports.
Ms Hasina has campaigned on her track record of modernising and improving the lives of more than four million garment workers, most of whom are women.
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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina casts her vote in Dhaka. Pic: AP Photo/Altaf Qadri
However, the pandemic stalled the garment industry’s growth, and the rise of fuel costs due to the Russia-Ukraine war has put a huge strain on the economy, depleting foreign exchange reserves and weakening the domestic currency.
Bangladesh is also experiencing a cost-of-living crisis, which sparked violent protests last year, before a $4.7bn (£3.7bn) International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout cleared the first review in December.
Ms Hasina’s government has faced allegations of being authoritarian, rigging elections, suppressing people’s votes and targeting opposition parties.
Awami League campaign posters on a street in the capital city
Human Rights Watch condemned the arrests of opposition members last year, and said “the government’s autocratic crackdown will jeopardise future economic cooperation” with other countries.
The US also previously raised concerns over human rights and imposed sanctions on two Bangladeshi security officials for alleged extrajudicial killings.
Opposition leader Ms Zia has been under house arrest for over two years on corruption charges, which she denies.
Her son, Tarique Rahman, the acting chairman of the party, is in exile in London. In August, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for amassing illegal wealth but he was not in court for the verdict.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against the Houthis and their Iranian “masters” after the group launched a missile attack on the country’s main international airport.
A missile fired by the group from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion Airport, causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
“Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran,” Mr Netanyahu wrote on X. “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”
Israeli police officers investigate the missile crater. Pic: Reuters
The missile impact left a plume of smoke and briefly halted flights and commuter traffic at the airport. Some international carriers have cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv for several days.
Four people were lightly wounded, paramedic service Magen David Adom said.
Air raid sirens went off across Israel and footage showed passengers yelling and rushing for cover.
The attack came hours before senior Israeli cabinet ministers were set to vote on whether to intensify the country’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, and as the army began calling up thousands of reserves in anticipation of a wider operation in the enclave.
Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport.
Iran’s defence minister later told a state TV broadcaster that if the country was attacked by the US or Israel, it would target their bases, interests and forces where necessary.
Israel’s military said several attempts to intercept the missile were unsuccessful.
Air, road and rail traffic were halted after the attack, police said, though it resumed around an hour later.
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Yemen’s Houthis have been firing missiles at Israel since its war with Hamas in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, and while most have been intercepted, some have penetrated the country’s missile defence systems and caused damage.
Israel has previously struck the group in Yemen in retaliation and the US and UK have also launched strikes after the Houthis began attacking international shipping, saying it was in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas.
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