Amid cheers from the crowd chanting his name in unison, Tarique Rahman took the stage. Wearing a white shirt and beige trousers, he sported a relaxed style and a casual smile. On this final day of campaigning, the chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), a right-wing opposition party, rushed from one political rally to another across the capital, Dhaka. In the upscale Banani neighborhood, he greeted his thousands of supporters at length before stepping onto the platform. “We have overthrown an autocratic government; now, we must rebuild the country,” he told the crowd. At 60, this heir to a powerful Bangladeshi political dynasty could become the next prime minister, after spending 17 years in forced exile in London.
Some 127 million voters are heading to the polls on Thursday, February 12, to choose the 350 members of Parliament, in an election that is historic in many regards. These legislative elections are the first since the ousting of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was forced from power by a violently suppressed student uprising in August 2024. Nearly 1,400 people died, according to the United Nations. The vote, which is being held alongside a constitutional referendum on proposed political reforms, will mark “the final step in the delicate political transition that has been under way for a year and a half,” overseen by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, according to the non-governmental organization International Crisis Group.
The last free and transparent elections were held in 2008, bringing the Awami League, Hasina’s party, to power. Every subsequent vote was marred by irregularities meant to maintain the regime, characterized by corruption and a serious authoritarian drift. Human rights organizations have widely documented the situation. In 2014, the opposition boycotted the legislative elections. In 2018, the Awami League stuffed ballot boxes the night before the vote. Then, in 2024, the election was once again held without the main opposition party, the BNP, after thousands of its leaders and supporters were arrested.
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