Bangladesh's opposition rejects election outcome

(31 Dec 2018) Bangladesh's opposition alliance on Monday rejected the official results of Sunday's general election, in which the ruling coalition won virtually every parliamentary seat.
The results give Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina a third consecutive term despite opposition allegations of intimidation.
The coalition led by Hasina's Awami League party won 288 out of 300 seats - 96 percent - in Sunday's polls, according to the Election Commission.
The opposition alliance led by prominent lawyer Kamal Hossain won only seven seats.
Hossain demanded a new election be held describing the result as
"a loss for Bangladesh and its 170 million citizens."
But Chief Election Commissioner K.M. Nurul Huda ruled out any revote, saying there were no reports of large irregularities.
Hasina's main rival for decades has been former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whom a court deemed ineligible to run for office because she is in prison for alleged corruption.
In Zia's absence, opposition parties formed a coalition led by Hossain, an 82-year-old former member of Hasina's Awami League.
More than a dozen people were killed in election-related violence on Sunday, and the election campaign was dogged by allegations of the arrest and jailing of thousands of Hasina's opponents.
In a wide-ranging discussion with foreign journalists and election observers at her official residence in Dhaka on Monday, Hasina refused a suggestion that she offer her political foes an olive branch.

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