Listen to this articleListen to this article | 5 minsinfoBangladesh is voting in an election seen as pivotal for the nation’s future as it seeks to chart a democratic course in the wake of the 2024 ouster of longtime leader Sheikh Hasina in a student-led uprising that killed hundreds.Voters headed to the polls on Thursday to cast their votes in a contest pitting the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and a Jamaat-e-Islami-led coalition that includes the National Citizens Party, formed by youth activists instrumental in ousting Hasina. There are nearly 127 million registered voters in the South Asian country.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThe two leading prime ministerial candidates are the BNP’s Tarique Rahman, a political scion who has edged ahead in polls with his anticorruption campaign, and Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman, who is aiming to present his long-excluded Islamist party as a credible and modern force for change.Polls opened amid tight security, with hundreds of thousands of security personnel deployed on the streets, but voters cast their ballots in a mood of optimism in what is seen as the first free and fair election since 2008, when Hasina embarked on an oppressive 15-year stretch in power.Jainab Lutfun Naher, a voter from the Gulshan area of Dhaka, told Al Jazeera that the experience was emotional and empowering. “I want this country to prosper,” she said. “I want it to be democratic, where everyone has rights and freedom.”AMM Nasir Uddin, the chief election commissioner, said the poll would mark a break from the “arranged elections” of recent history. “We must forget the history of centre-grabbing and ballot box capture,” he said. Advertisement Uddin noted that voter turnout had been strong, saying Bangladesh had “boarded the train of democracy” and would soon “reach its destination”.In parallel to the election, the country is also holding a referendum on constitutional reforms that the country’s caretaker government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, had put together after the student-led protests.Reporting from Dhaka, Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull sa …
