Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) candidate Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was elected the country's 23rd president on Thursday after securing 255 of the 349 votes cast.
The 78-year-old BNP secretary general and local government minister triumphed over the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance candidate Col (Retd) Oli Ahmed, who managed to get 88 votes.
The senior leader will succeed Mohammed Shahabuddin and move into Bangabhaban after more than three decades of presidential contests dominated by single candidates.
The result was announced by A.M.M. Nasir Uddin, the Chief Election Commissioner of Bangladesh, following three hours of polling at the Jatiya Sangsad (Parliament), which ended at 5 PM, as per a Daily Star report.
He added that of the 349 lawmakers that cast their votes, 343 were used, while six remained unused. Four ballots were replaced in line with Article 10 of the Presidential Election Act, 1991.
Alamgir is scheduled to take oath as Bangladesh’s new president on Friday evening at the Darbar Hall of Bangabhaban.
Alamgir is one of the seniormost faces in the country, having served as the acting secretary general of the BNP from 2011 before formally taking over the post in 2016.
His tenure also saw him steer the party during the imprisonment of its then-chairperson and former PM Khaleda Zia and the absence of Tarique Rahman, who was abroad at the time.
This comes after Shahabuddin, a Sheikh Hasina loyalist, resigned last month—without completing his five-year term—citing serious health issues.
Under the country's Constitution, a new president is required to be elected within 90 days of the office falling vacant. Parliamentary Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad had been serving as the acting president so far.
Alamgir's nomination was announced after a meeting of senior BNP leaders with PM and party chairman Tarique Rahman at the Prime Minister's Secretariat.
Notably, he was already in a strong position to secure the presidency, given that the BNP, which came to power on February 12 this year, currently commands a two-thirds majority in the Sangsad.
