BNP veteran elected as BD president

DHAKA:

Bangladeshi lawmakers elected veteran Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir as the country's new president on Thursday, making the longtime opposition figure head of state after his party came to power in a major political transition.

Alamgir, 78, defeated retired army Colonel Oli Ahmed in a parliamentary vote. He is expected to be sworn in on Friday evening.

Alamgir defeated Oli Ahmed, a retired army colonel and chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party, who was the candidate of the Jamaat-e-Islami-led 11-party opposition alliance, in a parliamentary vote.