Bangladesh heads to the polls on February 12 in its most consequential election in decades, marking the country’s first national vote since mass, student-led protests toppled long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and forced her into exile in 2024. More than 127 million voters are eligible to cast their ballots in what officials are calling the largest democratic exercise of the year. For the first time, around 15 million Bangladeshi expatriates will also be able to vote by post, a significant shift in a country where overseas remittances are vital to the economy. Despite the scale of the exercise, fears of unrest remain high.
The election is being overseen by a caretaker government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, following years of political repression, disputed polls and violent crackdowns that culminated in Hasina’s dramatic fall from power.
A fractured political landscape
Bangladesh’s politics has long been dominated by two rival forces, the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). That balance has now been upended.
The Awami League has been banned after Hasina and senior party leaders were charged over the violent suppression of protests in 2024. Hasina was tried in absentia and sentenced to death for ordering the killing of demonstrators, though India, where she has taken refuge, has refused to extradite her.
With the Awami League sidelined, the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami have emerged as the main contenders, each heading multi-party alliances. Nearly 2,000 candidates are contesting 350 seats in the unicameral Jatiya Sangsad, Bangladesh’s national parliament.
A history shaped by conflict and coups
Bangladesh’s troubled electoral journey began even before independence.
In Pakistan’s 1970 general election, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League won an outright majority, entitling it to form the national government. The Pakistani military refused to hand over power, triggering mass protests and, eventually, the Liberation War of 1971. An estimated three million people were killed and 200,000 women raped during the conflict, according to the United Nations.
Following independence, Mujib became prime minister. His party swept the 1973 election, winning 293 out of 300 seats, amid allegations of rigging and intimidation. By 1974, all opposition parties had been banned, turning Bangladesh into a one-party state.
That experiment ended abruptly in August 1975, when Mujib and most of his family were assassinated in a military coup. What followed was more than a decade of instability, marked by counter-coups, martial law and shifting military rule.
The return of elections and their erosion
Multi-party democracy was restored under President Ziaur Rahman, who led the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to victory in the 1979 election. After his assassination in 1981, army chief Hussain Muhammad Ershad seized power, ruling until mass protests forced his resignation in 1990.
The 1991 election, held under a neutral caretaker government, is widely remembered as Bangladesh’s first genuinely “free and fair” vote. Khaleda Zia of the BNP became the country’s first female prime minister, beginning a long-running rivalry with Sheikh Hasina.
Power alternated between the two leaders through the 1990s and early 2000s, but elections were frequently marred by boycotts, street violence and claims of manipulation.
Hasina’s consolidation of power
After returning to office in 2009, Hasina gradually dismantled the safeguards meant to ensure fair elections. Her government abolished the caretaker system, cracked down on opposition figures and oversaw elections in 2014 and 2018 that were widely criticised at home and abroad.
Opposition parties boycotted the 2014 vote, while the 2018 election, despite the introduction of electronic voting, delivered a supermajority to Hasina’s alliance amid allegations of intimidation, rigging and violence.
By the time of the January 2024 election, the BNP had again withdrawn, Jamaat-e-Islami remained banned, and Hasina secured a fifth term in what critics described as a return to one-party rule.
The protests that changed everything
The turning point came in July 2024, when students took to the streets after the Supreme Court reinstated a decades-old job quota system favouring families of liberation war veterans. The protests quickly grew into a broader movement against authoritarian rule.
Security forces responded with lethal force. At least 1,400 people were killed in the crackdown, according to official figures. On August 5, Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India. Three days later, Muhammad Yunus was sworn in as interim leader.
A vote with high stakes
Bangladesh has had 11 elected governments since 1971, interrupted repeatedly by military rule and political crises. Elections are held every five years, but few have passed without controversy.
As voters prepare to cast their ballots once again, the February 12 election is being seen not just as a contest for power, but as a test of whether Bangladesh can finally break free from its long cycle of disputed mandates, repression and unrest, and reclaim a credible democratic path forward.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: ZEE News
