Word: hasina
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...results were overwhelming. The Awami League, led by former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, won a staggering 230 of parliament's 299 seats. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party - led by another former prime minister, Khaleda Zia, who has often faced off against Sheikh Hasin over the years - was reduced to 27. With its allies, the Awami League will have a commanding 262-seat majority...
...running street battles between the country's two main political parties, the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The interim government rode into power on a tidal wave of popular anger and exasperation with the AL and the BNP and their demagogic, warring leaders, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, who ran these behemoth parties as their personal fiefs. Both Hasina and Zia were arrested and imprisoned, charged on various counts of graft and abuse of power. Some of their closest political allies were also convicted of corruption as the caretaker government vowed to shake things...
...gone the reformers' way. The two begums, as Hasina and Zia are known, still command huge swathes of support - and, after ceaseless political pressure from their cadres, both are now free from detention and contesting the upcoming polls. Initially, the caretaker government attempted to encourage prominent figures from civil society to form a "third way" to break from the country's two-party system. That project failed, as did efforts to weaken the begums' networks of patronage that assured their grip on power. After two years out in the cold, Hasina or Zia could very well snatch the reins again...
...cronyism. "People don't want to see the kind of polarization, the dysfunctional government that they witnessed in the past," says Peter Manikas, director of Asia research for the National Democratic Institute, a Washington-based think tank that has sent a delegation to monitor the elections. Since the 1990s, Hasina and Zia have swapped rancorous terms in office, leaving legacies of divisiveness and a trail of scandals of alleged kickbacks and bribery. "There was a winner-take-all mentality," says Manikas...
...Hasina and Zia to make the best of their second chance. Both are making a cantankerous go of it in the run-up to elections, including playing up threats to their lives. But there is hope that the aftermath of the polls may be less stormy. Hasina's AL look like the favorites at this point, and in recent weeks, have made the right noises about sharing power and pushing toward a more consensus-driven politics. One AL declaration suggested that the opposition - whoever it may be - retain certain prominent seats in parliament, such as that of the deputy speaker...