ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar congratulated Bangladesh leader Sheikh Hasina this week on winning a fourth term in office, saying he was looking forward to “enhanced cooperation” between the two countries under her leadership. 

Hasina will serve another five years in office after her party, the Awami League, and its allies won 223 out of 300 parliamentary seats contested this week. The national vote was marred by a boycott from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, pre-election violence and a low voter turnout. 

Relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh remain strained ever since the bloody 1971 war, when Bengali nationalists backed by India broke away from what was then West Pakistan to form a new country. It was Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led the independence movement for Bangladesh. 

“I congratulate Sheikh Hasina on her re-election as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh,” Kakar wrote on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “I wish Sheikh Hasina a successful term in office and look forward to enhanced cooperation between Pakistan and Bangladesh under her leadership.”

Pakistan is currently being run by a caretaker government under Kakar that is meant to oversee a general election scheduled for February 8. 

Caretakers are usually limited to overseeing elections, but Kakar’s set-up is the most empowered in Pakistan’s history thanks to last year’s legislation that allows it to make policy decisions on economic matters. 

Political analysts fear a prolonged period without an elected government in Pakistan would allow the military, which has ruled the country for over three decades since independence in 1947 and wields considerable control even if not in power, to consolidate control.

Kakar and his government have repeatedly assured masses that polls would be held as per schedule on February 8 and that a “level playing field“— a euphemism for fair chance for all political parties, would be provided to every contestant.