Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina Wins 5th Term, Thanks India For Being A Trusted Friend

New Delhi: A day before she won the election for the fifth time, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina thanked India for supporting during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan and giving “shelter” to her family in 1975 when many of her family members were killed in 1975.

“You are most welcome. We are very lucky…India is our trusted friend. During our 1971 liberation war, they supported us…After 1975, when we lost our whole family…they gave us shelter. So our best wishes to the people of India,” Hasina told reporters.

Sheikh Hasina won re-election for a fifth term Sunday following a boycott led by an opposition party she branded a “terrorist organisation”.

Hasina’s ruling Awami League “has won more than 50 percent seats,” an Election Commission spokesman told AFP, with counting ongoing.

Her party faced almost no effective rivals in the seats it contested, but it avoided fielding candidates in a few constituencies, an apparent effort to avoid the legislature being branded a one-party institution. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose ranks have been decimated by mass arrests, called a general strike and, along with dozens of others, refused to participate in a “sham election”.

Hasina, 76, had called for citizens to show faith in the democratic process but election officials said initial reports suggested a meagre turnout of some 40 percent.