Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday firmly told parliament that only the Awami League can hold free and neutral elections in Bangladesh and that it will continue protecting the people's voting rights, referring to recent city corporation elections and by-polls held under her government.
The premier was delivering her valedictory speech at the 23rd session (2023-24 budget session) of the 11th parliament.
“Our goal is to protect the voting rights of the people and ensure their economic emancipation,” she said.
The leader of the House said no one could raise a single question about the recent elections in Barishal, Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet and Gazipur. “Has any election ever been held in such a peaceful manner in Bangladesh in the past?” she asked.
About the by-polls, she said every one of them was held in a fair, free and neutral manner.
Earlier, the prime minister talked about how elections were rigged in the past during the regimes of Ziaur Rahman, HM Ershad and Khaleda Zia.
She said Ziaur Rahman spoiled the electoral system of the country by grabbing power illegally. Then HM Ershad followed him and Khaleda Zia followed Ershad, she said.
Sheikh Hasina, also the Awami League president, said her party always struggled for returning the voting rights of the people to their hands.
She said she handed over power in the most peaceful way in 2001 for the first time in the history of Bangladesh.
Depicting the "violence and torture" unleashed by the BNP, she said their actions can be compared only to the repressions carried out by the Pakistan occupation forces in 1971.
Noting that no one could raise any question over the 2008 general election, she said the BNP secured only 29 seats, which reflected the condition of the BNP clearly.
The prime minister said the Awami League and the BNP cannot be called equals as the Awami League was founded in 1949 from the movement for establishing the rights of people, whereas the BNP was formed in an illegal way from Cantonment grabbing state power.
“So their (BNP's) ideology and principle do not match those of the Awami League,” said Sheikh Hasina.
She said her government protected the voting rights of the people and continued the democratic process in Bangladesh during the 2009-2023 period.
“Since the Awami League has been in power, the democratic trend continues, the purchasing power of the people has increased and the country has gained the status of a developing country today,” she said.
Pointing at those who question the human rights situation of Bangladesh, she said they should protect the human rights of the people of their own countries first.
She questioned why those who say there are no human rights in Bangladesh did not see the repression committed in 2001, the August 21 grenade attack and what happened in Bangladesh from August 15, 1975 to 1996.
Noting that her government gave shelter to persecuted and forcibly displaced Rohingyas in Bangladesh, the prime minister said: “We took the responsibility of so many people on humanitarian grounds. What can be a bigger example of human rights protection?"
Sheikh Hasina questioned why the Awami League government would violate human rights when it gave shelter to persecuted people from another country.
She said many people were killed in many places throughout the world. Children are killed in schools and people are killed in shopping malls and streets in shootings regularly even in the US, she added.
“They should protect human rights in their own countries first,” said the prime minister.
The session, which started on May 31, was later prorogued. It held 22 sittings.
Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury read out the prorogation order of the president in the afternoon.