The election in Bangladesh

800,000 police to secure the election in troubled Bangladesh  

 

Security pressure in Bangladesh is massive ahead of Sunday's election. A total of 1.6 million people will work to ensure that everything goes right. About 800,000 of them are military or police, international news agencies write. 

 

- We have intensified patrolling and remain on high alert, says Kazi Shafiqul Alam, who is the police chief in the Gazipur area.  

 

The last few days have been characterized by anxiety. It is fueled by the opposition party BNP accusing the government of conducting an unfair election.  

 

- The government is once again playing with fire, says party leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.  

 

Just over 119 million people have the right to vote in one of the country's 42,000 polling stations.  

 

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Polling stations and trains in flames before the election: "A sabotage"  

 

Violence has broken out in Bangladesh ahead of Sunday's election. Rioters have, among other things, set fire to five schools, four of which are polling stations. The police believe that the fires are an attempt to disrupt the election, international news agencies write. 

 

In addition, four people died in a fire on a train in the capital Dhaka on Friday. Here, too, the motive is to scare people before the election, according to the police, who say that it is "obviously sabotage".  

 

The news agency AP writes that Bangladesh is often drawn by violence before elections, and that the tensions this year are particularly great. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is boycotting the election, accusing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of turning the country into a one-party state. Hasina, in turn, accuses the BNP of being behind the violent anti-government protests that have rocked Dhaka throughout the fall.  

 

The BNP is calling on voters to skip the election and instead take part in a two-day national strike starting today.