Hold the centre: On the road ahead for Bangladesh

The death of Khaleda Zia, Bangladesh’s first woman Prime Minister, on December 30, closes one of the most consequential chapters in the South Asian country’s turbulent political history. Zia, who entered politics after her husband, Gen. Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated in 1981, played a pivotal role in ending the military dictatorship in 1990. She initially joined hands with Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina in the struggle to restore democracy, but their subsequent feud, the ‘Battle of the Begums’, came to define Bangladesh’s politics for decades. With Zia’s passing and Ms. Hasina, deposed in an uprising in 2024 and now in exile in India, Bangladesh is poised for a generational shift as it prepares to hold elections on February 12, 2026. But this transition is unfolding amid chaos and uncertainty. Tarique Rahman, Zia’s 60-year-old son and the acting chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), returned after over 17 years of self-imposed exile. His immediate task is to unify the party’s fractious factions and articulate an inclusive vision for the electorate. In a massive rally in Dhaka, he avoided the language of vendetta and stressed unity and inclusivity, but the BNP’s violent past and Bangladesh’s present instability cast a doubt on the prospects of any swift turnaround in the country’s fortunes.

The interim government led by Muhammad Yunus has struggled to restore stability. Mobs continue to rule the streets, as evidenced by a recent lynching of a Hindu youth and arson attacks on two newspaper offices. Local reports also suggest that operatives of the banned Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh may be becoming active again, heightening security risks. Mr. Yunus has also banned the Awami League, one of the country’s two largest parties, from political activity — this renders the legitimacy of the election deeply contentious. The BNP is the other major force but its leaders and operatives have been accused of extortion rackets and political violence. The National Citizen Party, which emerged from the 2024 student uprising, promising a break with traditional politics, has formed an electoral alliance with the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami. If the Jamaat, which sided with the genocidal Pakistani military in 1971, emerges as a major political player or a power broker after the elections, it would mark a seismic shift, with uncertain implications for Bangladesh’s secular constitutional order. What Bangladesh needs is a leader who can break the cycle of chaos, rebuild public trust, restore law and order and keep fundamentalist groups at bay. The responsibility for rebuilding the centre of Bangladesh’s political spectrum rests largely with Tarique Rahman and the BNP. Whether he can shoulder that burden effectively will shape the country’s near future.