DHAKA: Bangladesh said it will hold a parliamentary election on Jan 7 in which the country’s longest-serving prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, will seek a fifth term, as deadly protests by opposition parties demand her resignation to make way for a caretaker government.

At least four people, including a policeman, were killed and hundreds injured in violent protests across the country in the past two weeks.

The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose top leadership is either jailed or in exile, has already said it will boycott the next national election if Hasina does not resign and allow in a caretaker government, two party leaders said earlier this month.

Boycotting the election will de-legitimise any win for her, they said. The BNP also boycotted the 2014 election but participated in 2018. The BNP and other opposition groupings have been calling on Hasina to step down and allow the election to be held under a neutral caretaker government, a demand her administration has rejected.

A senior BNP leader on Wednesday said the “unilateral declaration” of the election schedule would further fuel tensions in the country.

“We sincerely wish the government would shun this path of violence and coercion of the opposition so that an appropriate congenial environment is created… ensuring peaceful coexistence where people can freely exercise their democratic rights,” Abdul Moyeen Khan, a former minister and member of the BNP’s highest policy-making body, told Reuters.

BNPs senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi also voiced opposition to the election announcement.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2023