The ruling Awami League has won 421 chairmen’s seats, including 39 unopposed winners, and the BNP 66, indicate initial results of the fifth phase of Union Parishad elections involving 625 unions.
Independent candidates, many of them Awami League renegades who contested on their own after being denied party nominations, have bagged 168 chairmen’s posts.
At least 11 people have been killed, including two candidates, in poll-related violence during elections to 717 Union Parishads held in Bangladesh’s 45 districts on Saturday.
Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad expressed concern at the spate of violence and appealed to everyone to ‘prepare for democracy’.
Till Sunday afternoon, the EC had the initial results of 664 unions sent by the returning officers, including 39 uncontested winners.Many of the remaining 53 results have been held up due to suspension of voting in certain centres.
EC officials said of the 11,387,000 voters in the fifth phase, 8,786,067 had cast their votes.
The initial results show Awami League candidates have won 421 UP chairman posts, including 39 unopposed winners.
Independents have won 168 seats, the BNP 66, Jatiya Party 8, and others one.
EC spokesperson SM Asaduzzaman said the final results would be declared once the full details arrived.
Results of five phases
Election to this grass-roots tier of local government is being held along party line for the first time.
Poll-related violence has claimed nearly a hundred lives so far in the first five-phases of the electoral exercise.
Elections to over 3,000 of Bangladesh’s more than 4,000 Union Parishads, held in five phases, ended on Saturday.
According to EC data, 74 percent of votes were cast in Phase-1, 78 percent in Phase-2, 76 percent in Phase-3, 77 percent in Phase-4, and 76.8 percent in Phase-5.
The details of each phase are as follows:
>> Phase-1: The Awami League (AL) bagged 498 chairman posts and the BNP 50.
Independents won 109 posts, while 54 Awami League candidates had won unopposed.
>> Phase-2: The AL won 419 posts, the BNP 63, and Independents 117. In this phase, 34 AL candidates had won without any contest.
>>Phase-3: The AL got 366 posts, BNP 60, Independents 139, and 29 AL candidates won unopposed.
>>Phase-4: The AL got 405, BNP 70, Independents 161, and 35 AL candidates won uncontested.
>>Phase-5: The AL has won 382 posts along with 39 uncontested wins, BNP 66, Independents 168, Jatiya Party 8, others 1.
The sixth and the last phase of the UP elections in 727 unions has been slated for Jun 4.
Source: bdnews24