December 30, 2008	Tuesday	Muharram 01,1430

DHAKA, Dec 29: An alliance headed by Bangladesh’s former prime minister Sheikh Hasina took an early lead in unofficial results from Monday’s parliamentary polls, election officials said.

They said Hasina’s alliance had won 88 out of 106 seats so far in the 300-seat parliament, with 16 seats going to a group led by Begum Khaleda Zia, another former prime minister and rival for power.

The vote aimed to return Bangladesh, a country of more than 140 million people, to democracy after two years of emergency rule imposed by an army-backed government.

For the most part the election avoided the problems of the previous polls, which were marred by violence and accusations of vote-rigging.

“The election ended in a very peaceful environment and I never saw such a congenial atmosphere. The turnout was tremendous,” Taleya Rehman, executive director of monitoring group Democracy Watch, told Reuters.

A military-backed interim government took over in January 2007, following widespread street violence between supporters of rival parties, and cancelled elections due that month.

Whoever wins the election will have to tackle the endemic corruption, ailing economy and chronic political and social unrest which prompted the military to intervene.

Rivals Hasina and Khaleda alternated in power for 15 years up to 2006, but critics say they failed to resolve Bangladesh’s problems in a large part because of protests, strikes and street violence linked to their parties when out of office.

The leading election candidates pledged to crack down on violent extremists and made populist promises to contain prices and promote growth in a country where 45 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Previous polls

Official results will not be available until Tuesday, but officials and analysts said it was unclear if the losers would accept the results or take their supporters back onto the streets to protest.

“We have waited so long ... but (are) feeling good the election is held at last,” Hasina, leader of the Awami League, said after casting her vote.

Khaleda, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), said: “If the election is free and fair, Inshallah (God willing) we will win and form the next government.”

In Dhaka, voters in cheerful mood waited for up to an hour to cast their ballot, many milling in the streets afterwards to chat. Men and women, many of the latter in brightly coloured saris and head scarves, voted at separate sites.

“This time the mood is different,” Mariam Faruqui told Reuters as she waited in the voting line.

“Other times there were very (many) illegal votes” and some people were scared to support the candidates they really wanted, the 50-year-old gynaecologist said.

In the past, Bangladeshi elections were often marked by fraud and intimidation, party supporters taking to the streets for protests, strikes and confrontations both before and after polling day—Reuters