BNP wins majority in Bangladesh election

2026-02-13 - 11:00

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has won a majority of more than two-thirds of seats in parliament in a landmark election. This is a huge change of fortunes for BNP leader Tarique Rahman who spent 17 years in self-imposed exile in London. He had been convicted for various charges under Sheikh Hasina’s rule, which he says were politically motivated. Rahman is the son of three-time PM Khaleda Zia and former president Ziaur Rahman. Voters also endorsed sweeping constitutional reform in a referendum held alongside the general election. These are the first polls since student-led protests in 2024 ousted PM Sheikh Hasina, who has denied ordering a crackdown in which 1,400 people were killed. Hasina’s Awami League was banned from contesting the election. Members and supporters of Awami League had called for a boycott of the vote, saying it cannot be free and fair when the party is banned from contesting. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s largest Muslim party Jamaat-e-Islami, which had allied with the youth-centered National Citizen Party that played a major role in the 2024 uprising, has questioned the vote-counting process, pointing to “repeated inconsistencies and fabrications in unofficial result announcements” (Excerpts : BBC News)