DHAKA, AUG 20 (PTI): Ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) candidate Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was on Thursday elected as the country’s new President in the first contested poll for the post in 35 years.
The 78-year-old BNP stalwart defeated his rival Colonel (retd) Oli Ahmed, the Liberal Democratic Party chairman and the nominee of the Jamaat-e-Islami-led 11-party opposition alliance, Chief Election Commissioner and also Election Returning Officer AMM Nasir Uddin said.
Alamgir secured 255 votes while Oli Ahmad bagged 88 votes, he said.
Of the total 349 registered voters, 343 voted in the election. Six lawmakers didn’t vote, he added.
The president-elect will take the oath as Bangladesh’s new President on Friday evening at the Darbar Hall of Bangabhaban.
It is the first contested presidential election in Bangladesh since 1991, as the office had largely been filled through consensus and uncontested polls in recent decades.
The presidential election was necessitated after Mohammed Shahabuddin, a close aide of deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina, resigned last month on health grounds before completing his five-year tenure.
