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The heir to one of Bangladesh’s main political dynasties is set to take power after the country’s first general election since a student-led revolution toppled longtime leader Sheikh Hasina in 2024.
Several local broadcasters reported early on Friday that Tarique Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party had crossed the threshold for a majority in Bangladesh’s 300-seat parliament, citing unofficial vote returns. The election commission is due to unveil official results later in the day.
The results mean Rahman, whose parents led one of the country’s two main post-independence political factions, is set to become prime minister, after the BNP defeated a coalition of 11 mainly Islamist parties led by Jamaat-e-Islami.
The vote followed the youth-led “Monsoon Revolution” in 2024 that ended Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule and raised hopes of a restoration of democratic stability to the south Asian country.
“The Bangladesh Nationalist Party is set to form the government after winning the majority of seats,” the party wrote on social media.
The polls on Thursday were largely peaceful in a nation that has endured sporadic bouts of political violence.
Broadcasters showed that Bangladesh also passed a referendum that would allow the country to take a first step towards amending its constitution, as voters backed sweeping political reforms.
These included term limits for the prime minister and efforts to strengthen judicial independence, measures aimed at weakening the executive to prevent a return to authoritarian rule. Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League was barred from contesting the polls.
The election concluded a tense year-and-a-half transition during which Bangladesh has been overseen by a caretaker administration led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, who is expected to step down as soon as next week.
Sheikh Hasina’s regime was marred by allegations of human rights abuses and kleptocracy. Opposition parties boycotted two elections during her rule, while a third was widely seen as rigged. A court in Bangladesh sentenced Sheikh Hasina last year to death in absentia for crimes against humanity.
“This election was about a suppressed nation reclaiming its voice,” said Shafqat Munir, senior fellow with the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies in Dhaka. “It’s a nation’s reconquest of democracy. Bangladesh makes a new beginning with this result.”
Rahman has pledged to reset what he has called a “one-sided” relationship with India, which had long backed Sheikh Hasina and has hosted her since she was ousted.
“It’s not healthy to have a tense [relationship] with India, so he will have to play a balancing act with others,” said Selim Raihan, executive-director of the Dhaka-based South Asian Network on Economic Modeling think-tank.
He will need to balance that effort with deepening the relationship with China, a nascent rapprochement with historic foe Pakistan and a recent trade deal with the US.
Rahman, 60, has never held public office. He returned to Bangladesh in December after living in self-imposed exile in London for 17 years, avoiding corruption charges that he says were politically motivated.
His mother Khaleda Zia was a three-time prime minister who led the BNP for decades before her death in December, while his father, Ziaur Rahman, was an independence leader and former president who was assassinated in 1981.
During the BNP’s last term in power from 2001 to 2006, Bangladesh was ranked the world’s most corrupt country by Transparency International for four consecutive years.
This week, Rahman said he “sincerely” apologised for “any unintentional mistakes made while governing the country in the past”.
Additional reporting by Redwan Ahmed
