Polls closed in Bangladesh on Thursday in a closely watched national election seen as a defining test of the country’s democratic future, 18 months after a student-led uprising toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina following a deadly security crackdown.
Election officials reported turnout approaching 49 percent by midafternoon, with more than 120 million eligible voters casting ballots at over 36,000 polling centers nationwide.
Nearly a million police and soldiers were deployed to maintain order during what many described as the first genuinely competitive vote since 2008.
The Awami League, the party of Ms. Hasina, who was sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity and is in exile in India, was barred from contesting the polls.
With more than 2,000 candidates vying for parliamentary seats, counting began by hand after voting ended, with results expected by Friday morning.
The race pits the center-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Tarique Rahman, against a coalition headed by the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami and joined by a party formed from the student protest movement that helped unseat Ms. Hasina.
Mr. Rahman, who has campaigned on anticorruption and economic reform, has been viewed by some observers as a front-runner, though Jamaat has mounted a significant challenge with a grassroots platform focused on justice and ending corruption.
For the first time in years, the outcome is widely seen as unpredictable.
Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin said Bangladesh had “boarded the train of democracy,” describing the vote as a break from what he called “arranged elections” in recent history.
Alongside the parliamentary contest, voters participated in a referendum on constitutional, electoral and policing reforms proposed by the interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.
The measures are intended to prevent a return to autocratic rule and to rebalance power among state institutions.
“This election is not just another routine vote,” Mr. Yunus said earlier this week.
Analysts say the next government will face mounting economic pressures, youth unemployment and climate vulnerability, challenges that many voters hope a renewed democratic mandate will help address.