For San Francisco readers keeping up-to-date on world news, we are pleased to present this story from The BBC.

Security is tight across Bangladesh for elections to return the country to democracy after two years of a military-backed interim government.

About 50,000 soldiers and 600,000 police have been deployed to guard against election fraud and violence.

The frontrunners, the Awami League of Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), have ruled Bangladesh for years.

Both leaders were jailed for corruption but released to contest the vote.

The two rivals have pledged to lower food prices, and to tackle corruption and terrorism in the poor nation of 144 million people.

In final campaign speeches broadcast on Saturday, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia promised to end the confrontation, strikes and violent street rallies which have marked Bangladeshi politics for years.

The two women alternated in power for 15 years until 2006.

Anti-corruption drive

“Perhaps we have taken the toughest ever security precautions to ensure that balloting takes place peacefully, free from rigging, intimidation and threats,” said Noor Mohammad, the Inspector General of Police.

Some 200,000 electoral observers, including 2,500 from abroad, are monitoring the vote.

The army cancelled elections due in January 2007 after months of street protests and battles between gangs of rival party supporters spiralled out of control.

An army-backed caretaker government then attempted to root out corruption from the country’s elites.

The newly-empowered Anti-Corruption Commission sought to prosecute the top politicians and businessmen who had earned Bangladesh its reputation as one of the world’s most corrupt countries, says the BBC’s Mark Dummett in the capital, Dhaka.

More than 11 million phoney names were purged from the voter roll, which now numbers about 81 million people.

A simple majority of the parliament’s 300 seats is enough to secure victory, but analysts say no clear winner may emerge, leading to fears of unrest if supporters of the rival parties take to the streets

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation

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