BNP secures 50% votes, Jamaat gets 32% in national election

The BNP, which is on course to form the government after winning two-thirds of the seats in the 13th National Parliamentary Election, has secured nearly four crore votes—amounting to 49.97 per cent of votes cast. Jamaat-e-Islami, which has emerged as the main opposition party in second position, has received 31.76 per cent of the votes.

Candidates of the National Citizen Party (NCP), which secured the third highest number of seats, have received 3.05 per cent of the votes. Independent candidates, who won seven seats, have garnered 5.79 per cent support.

The Election Commission released this information on Sunday, February 15, regarding votes received by party-based contesting candidates. The data was published three days after the national election held on Thursday.

The day after the election, EC Secretary Akhtar Ahmed had presented party-wise results and vote shares, stating that the voter turnout in the parliamentary election was 59.44 per cent across 297 seats, while the referendum turnout was 60.26 per cent across 299 seats.

Results have been announced for 297 seats so far in this election. Among these, BNP has won 209 seats, while Jamaat-e-Islami has secured 68 seats. Ganadhikar Parishad, allied with BNP, has won one seat; Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP) has won one; and Ganashonghati Andolan has won one. Among the allies of Jamaat's 11-party alliance, NCP has won six seats, Bangladesh Khilafat Majlish two, and Khilafat Majlish one. Outside the alliances, Islami Andolan Bangladesh has won one seat, and independent candidates have won seven seats.

Among the 50 reserved seats in the 13th Parliament, the BNP alliance will receive 36, the Jamaat alliance will receive 13, and independents will receive one.

The 'yes' vote has won in the referendum on implementing the July National Charter. The July Charter proposes a bicameral parliament. In that case, the upper house would comprise 100 members. Seats in the upper house would be allocated based on the proportional representation (PR) system according to the vote shares received by political parties in the parliamentary election.

The current parliament has 50 reserved women's seats. There is also a proposal to gradually increase this to 100.