DHAKA: Bangladesh\u2019s elections chief quit Thursday after denying political interference in January polls that re-elected autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina, who has since fled the country after a student-led revolution.
\nKazi Habibul Awal and the country\u2019s four other election commissioners all tendered their resignation, citing the ex-premier\u2019s ouster as the reason for doing so.
\nThey are the latest of several Hasina-appointed public officials to quit their posts since her departure, including the central bank boss and supreme court judges.
\n\u201cI and the other commissioners intended to resign given the changed scenario of the country,\u201d Awal told reporters.
\nThe five commissioners presided over a January election that guaranteed Hasina a fourth consecutive term and her Awami League party and its allies a near-monopoly on seats.
\nThe vote was marred by low turnout and was boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) after thousands of members were arrested in a pre-emptive crackdown.
\nRights groups and Western governments criticized the vote as unfree and unfair.
\nBut Awal said the lack of genuine political opposition to Hasina meant that the vote itself was conducted with integrity.
\n\u201cThe main opposition party BNP and like-minded parties didn\u2019t participate,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cAs it was a one-party election, there was no necessity to influence the election.\u201d
\nHasina\u2019s 15-year rule saw widespread human rights abuses, including the mass detention and extrajudicial killings of her political opponents.
\nShe fled to India by helicopter last month, where she remains, and was replaced by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is heading an interim government.
\nYunus faces the monumental task of charting democratic reforms after years of repression but his caretaker cabinet has yet to give an indication of when fresh elections will be held.
\nSenior bureaucrats who quit their posts last month had been given ultimatums to do so by leaders of the student protests which toppled Hasina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DHAKA: Bangladesh\u2019s elections chief quit Thursday after denying political interference in January polls that re-elected autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina, who has since fled the country after a student-led revolution. Kazi Habibul Awal and the country\u2019s four other election commissioners all tendered their resignation, citing the ex-premier\u2019s ouster as the reason for doing so. They are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n