Head of Pakistan-administered Kashmir calls for international mediation

DHAKA: Bangladesh on Sunday restored the registration of the largest Islamist party, allowing it to take part in elections, more than a decade after it was removed under the now-overthrown government.

The Supreme Court overturned a cancelation of Jamaat-e-Islami’s registration, allowing it to be formally listed as a political party with the Election Commission.

“The Election Commission is directed to deal with the registration of that party in accordance with law,” commission lawyer Towhidul Islam told AFP.

Jamaat-e-Islami party lawyer, Shishir Monir, said the Supreme Court’s decision would allow a “democratic, inclusive and multi-party system” in the Muslim-majority country of 170 million people.

“We hope that Bangladeshis, regardless of their ethnicity or religious identity, will vote for Jamaat, and that the parliament will be vibrant with constructive debates,” Monir told journalists.

After Sheikh Hasina was ousted as prime minister in August, the party appealed for a review of the 2013 high court order banning it.

Sunday’s decision comes after the Supreme Court on May 27 overturned a conviction against a key leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, A.T.M. Azharul Islam.

Islam had been sentenced to death in 2014 for rape, murder and genocide during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.

Jamaat-e-Islami supported Islamabad during the war, a role that still sparks anger among many Bangladeshis today.

They were rivals of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of the Awami League, who would become Bangladesh’s founding figure.

Hasina banned Jamaat-e-Islami during her tenure and cracked down on its leaders.

In May, Bangladesh’s interim government banned the Awami League, pending the outcome of a trial over its crackdown on mass protests that prompted her ouster last year.

WARSAW: Poles began voting on Sunday in a tight presidential election with major implications for the country’s role in Europe, and for abortion and LGBTQ rights.

Warsaw’s pro-EU mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, 53, an ally of the centrist government, faces off against nationalist historian Karol Nawrocki, 42, with opinion polls showing that the race was too tight to call.

Polls close at 9:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) in the EU and NATO country, which borders Ukraine and has been a key supporter of its neighbor in the war against Russia.

An exit poll is expected as soon as ballots close and election officials predict that the final result will be known on Monday.

A victory for Trzaskowski would be a major boost for the progressive agenda of the government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, a former European Council president.

It could mean significant social changes such as the introduction of civil partnerships for same-sex couples and an easing of the near-total ban on abortion.

Presidents in Poland, a fast-growing economy of 38 million people, have the power to veto legislation and are also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Victory for Nawrocki would embolden the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023, and could lead to fresh parliamentary elections.

Many Nawrocki supporters want stricter curbs on immigration and advocate for conservative values and more sovereignty for the country within the European Union.

“We should not give in to European pressure,” 40-year-old Agnieszka Prokopiuk, a homemaker, said ahead of the vote.

“We need to make our own way... and not succumb to trends from the West,” she said in the city of Biala Podlaska in eastern Poland near the Belarus border.

Tomasz Czublun, a 48-year-old mechanic, said: “The European Union is important but the sovereignty of our country is much more important.”

Anna Materska-Sosnowska, a politics expert, called the election “a real clash of civilizations” because of the wide policy differences between the candidates.

Many Trzaskowski voters support greater integration within the EU and an acceleration of social reforms.

Malgorzata Wojciechowska, a tour guide and teacher in her fifties, said Polish women “unfortunately do not have the same rights as our European friends.”

“I hope that Rafal Trzaskowski will relaunch the debate on abortion so that we can finally live in a free country where we can have our own opinion,” she said.

The election is also being watched closely in Ukraine, which is seeking to bolster international diplomatic support in its negotiations with Russia as its resistance to Moscow’s invasion grinds on.

Nawrocki, an admirer of US President Donald Trump, opposes NATO membership for Kyiv and has called for curbs on benefits for the estimated one million Ukrainian refugees in Poland.

He used his last campaign hours on Friday to leave flowers at a monument to Poles killed by Ukrainian nationalists during World War II.

“It was a genocide against the Polish people,” he said.

The election’s final result is expected to hinge on whether Trzaskowski can mobilize enough supporters and whether far-right voters will cast their ballots for Nawrocki.

Far-right candidates secured more than 21 percent of the vote in the election’s first round, which Trzaskowski won by a razor-thin margin of 31 percent against 30 percent for Nawrocki.