Bangladesh held its first general election Thursday since mass protests in 2024 ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, with early projections showing a Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led alliance ahead in a vote widely viewed as a key test of the country’s democratic recovery after years of political unrest.
A projection showed that the alliance led by the BNP took the lead with 127 seats, while its main challenger, an 11-party alliance led by the Jamaat-e-Islami party, garnered 32 seats and three seats by others, according to Dhaka-based Jamuna TV.
Official results were expected on Friday. Bangladesh is a parliamentary democracy in which 300 lawmakers are elected through direct voting.
After a slow start, crowds converged on polling stations in the capital, Dhaka, and elsewhere later in the day. By 2 p.m., more than 47% voters had cast their ballots, the Election Commission said.
At one Dhaka polling station, poll officials manually counted the paper ballots and checked each for validity before tabulating the results. Political party representatives were present as election observers, and security officials kept a close watch on Thursday evening.
