Election fever grips Bangladesh ahead of Monday poll

Election fever gripped Bangladesh today ahead of a parliamentary poll on 29 December as candidates held their final rallies in cities and campaign CDs played in local markets and other public places in rural areas.

In Dhaka, former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was scheduled to address a rally expected to draw tens of thousands before Saturday's midnight deadline for electioneering to end.

Her main rival Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League, also a former PM, was due to speak in the port city of Chittagong.

Elsewhere candidates and their agents made direct appeals to smaller groups of voters in the majority Muslim South Asian nation of more than 140 million people.

"I didn't open my shop today, as I will campaign for my chosen candidate. I will especially go to the women who usually do not come out of homes," said Delwar Hossain, a paramedic in the eastern district of Brahmanbaria.

"Both the BNP and the Awami League have separate campaign CDs that people are keenly watching. They seem to know only Hasina and Khaleda but have little idea about their manifestoes," Delwar said by telephone.

Abdul Kuddus, a farmer in a nearby village, said: "I took my bulls out very early today in deep fog to plough my land, so I can free up time in the afternoon to join a campaign procession.

"This is one good chance for me to cast my own vote," said Kuddus, 35, who failed to vote in the past two elections.

"In those times, somebody else did the job for me. I was very much upset," he told Reuters, referring to widespread malpractice in previous votes.

For Monday's poll, the country's military-backed interim government - which took power amid political turbulence in January 2007 and cancelled an election due that month - has cleaned up voter rolls and provided picture ID cards.

At Narsingdi, 80 km (50 miles) east of Dhaka, housewife Safura Khatoon said: "I don't know who to vote for, because people coming to us for votes are saying similar things.

"They promised us cheap food, year-round work and other benefits previously. But we hardly saw them after the elections. I suspect the same will happen this time again," said the 55-year-old woman.

"Nevertheless, the coming polls are somewhat different in the way that nobody is offering money or gifts yet," she added.

Small bribes for votes were another common feature of past Bangladesh elections.

For Monday's vote some 2,000 foreign and 200,000 local election monitors are being deployed to polling stations around the country in an effort to prevent fraud.