Dhaka, July 25 - Muffled complaints of absence of intra-party democracy surfaced as Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was elected president of the country's ruling Awami League for the seventh time, media reports here said Saturday.

Hasina and her hand-picked general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam were elected without a contest Friday at the 20th national council meeting of the party that country's founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman helped establish during the Pakistan era.

After the council meeting, 'some of the councillors, who had been cheering on the bandwagon of complacency during the session, were, however, seen and heard complaining about a lack of democracy in the process of electing the party leadership', said The Daily Star newspaper.

The council elected Friday was vested with the authority to choose leaders for 45 posts in the ruling party's 73-member central working committee, the highest decision-making forum.

The party constitution empowers the president to choose the remaining 26 members of the working committee.

The council's chief election commissioner M.A. Mannan told the newspaper that the commission was ready to hold elections to other posts but nobody filed for candidacy.

Saddled with the prime ministership since January, Hasina sought to usher in a new party leadership.