Bangladesh Leader Headed to 4th Straight Term in Vote Marred by Crackdown

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh was headed toward a fourth consecutive term in office as voting ended on Sunday in a low-turnout election that had been marred by a widespread crackdown on the opposition.

Security remained tight across the country of 170 million people as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the main opposition, which has boycotted the election as unfair, pushed for a nationwide strike. The situation had remained tense in the days leading up to the vote, with episodes of violence — including arson on a train in Dhaka that killed four people, and the torching of more than a dozen polling stations — reported from across the country.

Ms. Hasina, 76, who cast her vote in Dhaka, the capital, soon after polls opened at 8 a.m. local time, urged people to come out in large numbers. Early results showed her party with a clear majority.

On the campaign trail, she had called for political stability and continuity, often by mentioning the country’s violent history of coups and counter-coups, including one that killed her father, Bangladesh’s founding leader, in the 1970s. She had highlighted her efforts to champion economic development, and her secular party’s resistance to the rise of Islamist militancy, as reasons the voters should give her another term.

“We have struggled a lot for this voting right: jail, oppression, grenades, bombs,” Ms. Hasina told reporters after casting her vote. “This election will be free and fair.”

But with the results foretold, and the election largely a one-sided affair, there appeared to be little excitement on the streets about the vote.

“I didn’t go to vote in my hometown because what difference would my vote make?” said Mominul Islam, a rickshaw puller in Dhaka.

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