Awami League President Sheikh Hasina will brief foreign journalists and observers who came to Bangladesh to monitor the 11th national election held yesterday.

The briefing will be held at Gono Bhaban today, AL Joint General Secretary Abdur Rahman made the announcement while briefing journalists at the party president's Dhanmondi office this morning.

Abdur Rahman also expressed his gratitude to all, including the law enforcers and the observers, to contribute towards "holding the election in a free and fair manner."

Sheikh Hasina is set to become Prime Minister of Bangladesh for a third term as the Hasina-led Awami League won a landslide victory in the polls held yesterday.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's ICT Affairs Adviser and son Sajeeb Wazed Joy today explained why the Awami League secured absolute majority and its rival BNP experienced a debacle in the 11th parliamentary elections.

In a status published in his verified Facebook post, Sajeeb Wazed Joy has given his analysis of the polls results.

Here is the full text of the status:

The BNP and Okyo Front, having been thoroughly rejected by our voters, have taken to begging their foreign masters for help. They are on an international lobbying and PR blitz to try to prove that our elections were rigged. The fact is that it is mathematically impossible. The Awami League's margin over the BNP is about 49 million votes. It is simply not possible to manipulate elections by 49 million votes without it being caught on everyone’s mobile camera. As for their claims of voter intimidation, even if every voter who did not vote for AL voted for the Okyo Front, they would still be more than 22 million votes short.

Still, a section of our so called "civil society" continues to join the BNP’s international PR campaign against our election. I would like to address all their complaints and raise a few of my own.

The first complaint is that voter turnout was too high and indicates false votes. The final voter turnout figure is 80% and it is not a record in Bangladesh. That distinction is held by the 2008 elections under the 2007-2008 "caretaker" regime when turnout was 87%. The AL won that election in a landslide with 48% of the vote by itself. In 2001 the voter turnout was around 75.6% and in 1996 it was 75%. Turnout was just slightly higher because this is the first fully participatory elections in a decade.

The second propaganda is that the ruling party received 90% of the vote. This is a complete falsehood. The AL by itself received around 72%. Our Mohajote allies received just under 5%. Even the 72% is not a record for the AL. In the 1973 election after Independence the AL received 73.2% of the vote. Just as the reason then was the AL led the country to Independence, our vote increase this time has two very good reasons.

The first reason is simply because our AL Government has improved the lives of our citizens more than any other government in Bangladesh’s history. We have become a middle income country, per capita income has trebled, poverty has been halved, almost everyone has access to education, basic healthcare, electricity, and the list is endless. If there was a way to improve the lives of the Bangladeshi people, our Government has done it or the progress is visible.

Our “civil society” keeps harping about how the Bangladeshi voters are anti-incumbent, but that is just an indication of how out of touch they are with the common man. If you are an ordinary citizen, even if you are a wealthy businessman, your life and business are doing so much better now since the AL has turned Bangladesh into the fastest growing economy in the world. Why would you vote against the government that has transformed your life and business?

The second reason is that our election campaign did not start last year. It started right after the 2014 elections. We have not wasted any opportunity to inform the Bangladeshi people that we, the Awami League, are solely responsible for the positive changes in their lives. All the social and economic successes that have happened were because of the vision, planning, execution and hard work of our AL Ministers, Members of Parliament, Councilors, everyone. While our opposition and “civil society” were busy complaining about problems, we were telling people how we were providing solutions.

One of the favorite refrains of our “civil society” was that we have the largest number of new voters in this election; they don’t care about political parties and would be anti-incumbent. What they did not consider was that these young men and women grew up with the visible development work of our AL Government making their lives better and easier every year. Why would they vote for anyone else?

I have been conducting opinion polls for the Awami League since 2013. If you will notice, there was a dearth of opinion polls from our “civil society” this year. Prior to the 2014 elections they were busy publicizing one poll after another how badly the Awami League was going to lose. The fact is very few people and organizations in Bangladesh know how to conduct an accurate opinion poll. I have studied polling at Harvard and have interviewed and tried several polling teams in Bangladesh before I found the one we use. We don’t do artificial polls to inflate our popularity because that does not give us the information we need. We poll to know what our popularity is for elections and so our polls need to be accurate.

Our final opinion poll two weeks before the elections showed that the AL would receive between 57%-63% of the vote and the BNP would receive between 19%-25%. So how did the AL receive 72% of the vote? Our opinion poll sampled the entire voters list in 300 constituencies, all 104 million voters. But there is never 100% voter turnout and elections were held in 298 seats, not 300. The number of registered voters in the 298 seats was 103.5 million and an 80% turnout means 82.8 million people voted. The AL received about 60 million votes. 60 million out of 103.5 million is 58% of registered voters in those seats. The AL actually received votes on the low side of our poll’s margin of error.

So why did the Okyo Front receive so few votes? There are some very logical reasons. The BNP’s Chairperson has been convicted and is in jail. Their Acting Chairperson is a fugitive who is not even in Bangladesh. Their organization is in complete disarray. But those are not the most significant factors. There is one factor our “civil society” doesn’t want to acknowledge as it makes the BNP look really, really bad!

I’ve observed its effect through annual opinion polls. Once the BNP started burning civilians alive during their 2013-15 arson attack campaign, their popularity fell off a cliff. Prior to the arson attacks the BNP was usually around 10% behind the AL in opinion polls. After the arson attacks they fell 30% behind and kept falling.

Then there was their self-defeating election campaign, or rather a lack of it. The first thing they did was bring out Tariq Rahman to pick election nominees. All this managed to do is remind people of Hawa Bhaban and his corruption and violence. To add fuel to the fire, he picked known and wanted criminals and war criminals as candidates! Do you think their popularity would increase or decrease after this?

Next, the message they kept sending out to their supporters until the last minute was that they would boycott the elections. If you think your party is going to boycott, are you going to go out to vote? This is what caused the drop in their voter turnout and hence, their low percentage of the vote.

Finally, the only message the BNP and Okyo Front had for the people of Bangladesh is that the AL is bad. Given that the people could see the visible improvements in their lives over the past decade of the AL Government this was an extremely tough sell.

The Oikyo Front’s figurehead Kamal Hossain did not even run in this election. Why is that? It is because he knew he had absolutely no chance of winning a seat for himself. Of course, they surprised us. For the very first time in their existence as a political non-entity, his Gono Forum has actually won not one, but two seats! If there was any rigging in these elections, how could an opposition party that has never won a single seat win two?

The truth is far simpler. If you’re a citizen and especially a youth who sees a dynamic leader such as Sheikh Hasina developing and transforming the country, it won’t matter how much mud the opposition slings. At the end of the day you are going to vote for the party that is improving your life and the country.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who led her party to a landslide victory in the national election, may come up with a surprise by inducting new faces into the cabinet, likely to be formed on Sunday.

On the other hand, she may exclude some current cabinet members with “tainted images” for their "controversial roles” during the last five years in power, said party insiders.

Hasina may pick the new faces with clean images to present the country a new leadership, they said.

President Abdul Hamid will appoint members of the new cabinet on the PM's advice and administer their oath at the Bangabhaban.

According to ruling Awami League sources, some leaders who did not get party nomination for the December 30 polls may find themselves in the cabinet as a “reward”. Besides, the cabinet is likely to have three to four technocrat ministers.

The Daily Star talked with several AL leaders about the formation of the next cabinet. But the PM did not officially discuss anything about it with them, they said.

Hasina is now leading a 49-member cabinet comprising 30 ministers, 17 state ministers and two deputy ministers. Four technocrat ministers resigned last month.

The AL sealed victory in the national polls for the third consecutive time, securing a two-thirds majority. Out of the 298 seats, the AL-led alliance won in 288 and of them the ruling party itself got 259 seats.

According to AL leaders, Public Administration Minister Syed Ashraful Islam, also former general secretary of the party, may be dropped from the cabinet due to his illness. Disaster Management and Relief Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya, Food Minister Qamrul Islam, Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali, Textiles and Jute Minister Emaj Uddin Pramanik and Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan are also likely to be left out.

Besides, State Minister for Information Tarana Halim, State Minister for Health Zahid Maleque, State Minister for Social Welfare Nuruzzaman Ahmed and Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports Arif Khan Joy also may not get any place in the new cabinet.

Of them, Maya and Joy didn't get party nomination for Sunday's       election.

According to sources, the MPs-elect and some leaders are lobbying the prime minister and her close aides hard to be in the cabinet.

On several occasions in the past, Finance Minister AMA Muhith had said he would retire after the polls. But on Tuesday, he said he may remain as the minister for another year if the PM wanted him to do so.

In that case, Muhith may continue to be at the helm of the finance ministry as a technocrat minister.

Telecom and ICT minister Mustafa Jabbar and Science and Technology Minister Yeafesh Osman, who resigned from cabinet before the polls, might to be inducted in the cabinet again as technocrat ministers.

Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, Health Minister Mohammed Nasim, LGRD Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader, Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, Primary and Mass Education Minister Mostafizur Rahman, Fisheries and Livestock Minister Narayan Chandra Chanda, State Minister for Finance MA Mannan, State Minister for Textiles and Jute Mirza Azam, State Minister for Youth and Sports Biren Sikder, State Minister for Power Nasrul Hamid and State Minister for Environment Abdullah Al Islam Jacob are likely to continue as ministers. But there might be changes in their portfolio, party insiders said.

Besides, some new faces, including AL presidium members Lt Col (Retd) Muhammad Faruq Khan and Abdur Razzak; the PM's Private Sector Affairs Adviser Salman F Rahman, AL Joint General Secretary Dipu Moni, party's Cultural Affairs Secretary Asim Kumar Ukil, Liberation War Affairs Secretary Mrinal Kanti Das, Organising Secretary Khalid Mahmud Chowdhury and central committee member RAM Obaidul Muktadir Chowdhury also have good chances to be included in the new cabinet.

Of them, the name of Faruq Khan is being discussed as the foreign minister.

Bangladesh ODI captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, who won from Narail-2, is likely to be a state minister if he does not participate in the cricket World Cup starting in May. If he plays in the WC, he will get the position after the tournament.   

Besides, leaders from the AL's allies, including Jatiya Party, Jatiya Party (Manju), Workers Party and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD), would be in Hasina's new cabinet, insiders added.

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was elected unofficially from Bogura-6 constituency in the 11th parliamentary elections held on Sunday.

Election Commission (EC) Secretary Helal Uddin Ahmed announced the unofficial results of all 141 polling centers of the constituency.

Fakhrul bagged 205987 votes with “sheaf of paddy” symbol while his nearest rival Jatiya Party candidate Nurul Islam Omar got 39,961 votes with “plough” symbol.

But, the BNP secretary general was defeated by AL candidate Ramesh Chandra Sen in Thakurgaon-1 constituency.

Sen bagged 2,25,795 votes with ‘boat’ symbol in all 175 centers while his nearest contestant Fakhrul got 1,27,067 votes with ‘sheaf of paddy’ symbol. Thakurgaon-1 constituency lies in Fakhrul’s home district.

Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader today accused the BNP-led alliance of engaging in violence and carrying out bomb attacks realising imminent election defeat.

"The Jatiya Oikyafront lost its sense seeing huge public support for AL. Now, they are trying to trigger violence," he said after voting at Udayan Kindergarten polling centre in Basurhat municipality in the morning.

About 3,000 AL leaders and activists were injured until Saturday night but there is no report of injury from the opposition party, he claimed.

"The election is being held peacefully except for some stray incidents," Quader said. "I believe the voting will end peacefully ... [and] the people's expectation will be fulfilled."

Quader said he would accept the election result. "I am 100 percent hopeful about the AL-led grand alliance's victory," he said.