Bangladesh held its national elections on January 7, 2024 amidst violence and protests as the polls became embroiled in controversy. The ruling Awami League and allies achieved a resounding victory by getting 225 out of the 300 contested seats. The main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose leader and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is imprisoned under allegations of corruption, boycotted the polls, demanding that elections be held under a neutral caretaker government, the constitutional provision of which was abrogated by the Awami League after it came into power in 2009.
Bangladesh’s political history around past elections remains problematic and the nature of politics, confrontational. In the previous elections of 2014 and 2018 under the Awami League, the party faced similar allegations of electoral manipulation, irregularities, and violence, drawing criticism from international election observation missions.
