Parties Start Declaring Candidates For Elections In Bangladesh, BNP Takes Lead

Bangladesh has taken a step closer to elections with one of the main parties in the fray, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), announcing candidates for the elections that are scheduled in February next year. This will be the 13th parliamentary election in Bangladesh.

While 300 seats will see candidates contest against each other in the much-anticipated national election in the country, as the country returns to rule by an elected government, the BNP has published a list of 237 candidates, as 300 seats in the National Parliament will elect candidates.

The announcement is significant, as former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia's name has been included in the list of candidates. BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia will contest from three seats, Feni-1, Bogura-7, and Dinajpur-3 constituencies, while her son and acting chairman of the BNP, Tarique Rahman, will contest from the Bogura-6 seat. The BNP's secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, will contest from the Thakurgaon-1 constituency.

Tarique Rahman has been driving the party's messaging ahead of the elections and is likely to become Prime Minister if his party wins the election, as his mother, former PM Khaleda Zia, has been unwell for some time now.

Rahman, who has been living abroad, as under the Sheikh Hasina regime he was booked and convicted in cases and handed prison sentences, is expected to return to Bangladesh ahead of the elections.

In December 2024, a High Court acquitted Rahman, ex-minister Lutfozzaman Babar and all the others convicted in two cases related to the August 21, 2004, grenade attack in which Sheikh Hasina, then opposition leader, narrowly escaped but 24 people were killed as several grenades were hurled when she was addressing a "rally against terrorism".

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party was the main opposition party during the tenure of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, whose tenure abruptly ended after her government was overthrown in August 2024, following which she had to flee the country. 

Since then, Bangladesh has been governed by an interim government led by Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. Sheikh Hasina's Awami League has been banned and barred from contesting elections in the country.

The party that will return to the electoral fray this time is the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, which is a hardline Islamist party. Earlier the Jamaat was in an alliance with the BNP, but it was banned under the country's anti-terror law under the Sheikh Hasina regime for its alleged involvement in terror activities. 

However, after the overthrow of the Sheikh Hasina regime following violent protests last year, the ban on the Jamaat was lifted, and its registration with the election commission of the country was also reinstated, allowing the party to contest elections.

The Jamaat-e-Islami, Ameer (President) Shafiqur Rahman has said his party's final list of candidates for the upcoming 13th parliamentary election will be announced "in due time" but has not ruled out any alliance this time. However, the BNP and the Jamaat now disagree on several key issues.

India has consistently pushed for elections in Bangladesh and a return to a government with a mandate from elections.