Bangladesh's main opposition party starts a 48-hour general strike ahead of Sunday's election
The Election Commission said voting would start Sunday and last for eight hours across the country in over 42,000 ballot stations to receive the more than 119 million registered voters. Ballot boxes, among other election supplies, have been sent over in preparation for the vote, the commission said.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by former premier Khaleda Zia, and other opposition groups are boycotting the election, saying they can't guarantee its fairness under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who is seeking to return to power for a fourth consecutive term.
The BNP has vowed to disrupt the election, calling for strikes and urging people to join the boycott. On Saturday morning, a small group of party supporters marched across Shahbagh neighborhood in the capital, Dhaka, calling on people to join the strike.
Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, a BNP joint secretary general, repeated his party's demand for Hasina to resign at the march, calling the election «skewed.»
«The government is again playing with fire. The government has resorted to its old tactics of holding a one-sided election,» he said.
Campaigning in the nation of 169 million people has been marred with violence, with at least 15 people killed since October.
On Friday, an apparent arson fire on a train in the capital, Dhaka, killed four people, heightening the apprehension ahead of the vote.
While authorities have not immediately accused any groups or political parties of being behind the arson, a police official said the people who wanted to disrupt the election were «definitely» behind it.
The BNP's Rizvi blamed the government
Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen said in a statement
