Sheikh Hasina has secured her fifth term as Bangladeshi Prime Minister.

The results come as no surprise after the main opposition boycotted the elections the minute it was announced early November 2023.

Surprisingly, independent candidates secured a total of 63 seats, coming second to Hasina's Awami League (AL) which won 222 seats while the current opposition - Jatiya Party - won just 11 out of the 300 parliament seats.

The issues in governance created by the lack of any parliamentary opposition is yet to be seen.

“This is a bizarre outcome of a bizarre election,” Shahidul Alam, a renowned Bangladeshi rights activist and photographer, told Al Jazeera. “Dummy candidates in a dummy election will now lead to a dummy parliament.”

Shunned by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) – the AL’s main political opponent – which wanted the balloting held under a neutral entity instead of Hasina’s administration, Sunday’s “one-sided election” was just a “mere formality” to put Hasina back in power again, analysts say.

The voter turnout for the elections was at 40 percent, the Elections Commission stated. However, this has been widely criticised by political analysts and the public, stating that EC announced a 28 percent voter turnout initially.