Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed is heading for a landslide victory after unofficial results showed that she had crushed her bitter rival Khaleda Zia in national polls.
The alliance led by Sheikh Hasina's Awami League won an easy majority, which marked the end of two years of emergency rule in the impoverished nation.
Results announced by local television channels said that Sheikh Hasina had reached the 151-seat simple majority needed to return her to power in Bangladesh, which she ruled between 1996 and 2001.
Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies fared disastrously, winning just 16 seats to the Awami League's 151 by the early hours of the morning, according to the unofficial declarations.
Despite efforts by the caretaker regime to shake up a political system long seen as deeply corrupt, the two leading candidates are both former prime ministers who have ruled alternately since 1991.
The women - who were themselves jailed on corruption charges by the current regime before being released to contest the elections - warned of voter fraud but said they would not challenge the result.
