Initial Bangladesh local body election results suggest strong lead for PM's party

Initial results in Bangladesh's first-ever partisan local government body polls suggested a strong showing for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ruling party on Wednesday.

The Election Commission (EC) has suspended the polls for one municipality.

According to initial results published by the EC, the ruling party candidates have won so far 162 mayoral positions out of 233 municipalities.

On the other hand, ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) got so far 18 mayoral positions while no party-independent candidates and others won in 24 municipalities.

Some 20 parties including BNP, which sat out the 2014 national polls, have joined the elections.

Hasina's ruling Bangladesh Awami League party (AL) claimed that the voting was free and fair, but BNP claimed of widespread rigging.

In a post-election press conference, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed claimed that the elections were held in a peaceful manner except some stray incidents here and there.

Violence during the voting left one dead and scores of others injured.

Ahmed said the commission has cancelled polls at 50 centers and one municipality.

BNP spokesman Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said their apprehension of a "farcical election" became finally true.

He demanded re-election to at least 1,500 polling centers of 160 municipalities.

PM's political adviser HT Imam described BNP's allegations about the vote rigging as blatant lie.

He also accused BNP of hatching conspiracy to make the municipality elections controversial and tarnish image of the ruling party in home and abroad.

The elections are a prestige fight for both BNP and AL ahead of the national polls slated for 2019. Endit