Bangladesh will hold elections in early April 2026 for the first time since a mass uprising overthrew the government last year, interim leader Muhammad Yunus said Friday.
The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted by a student-led revolt in August 2024, ending her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.
“I am announcing to the citizens of the country that the election will be held on any day in the first half of April 2026,” said Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who leads the caretaker government.
Political parties jostling for power have been repeatedly demanding Yunus fix an election timetable, while he has said time is needed as the country requires an overhaul of its democratic institutions after Hasina’s tenure.
“The government has been doing everything necessary to create an environment conducive to holding the election,” he added in the television broadcast, while repeating his warning that reforms were needed.
“It should be remembered that Bangladesh has plunged into deep crisis every time it has held a flawed election,” he said, in a speech given on the eve of the Eid al-Adha holiday in the Muslim-majority nation.
“A political party usurped power through such elections in the past, and became a barbaric fascist force.”
Hasina’s rule saw widespread human rights abuses, and her government was accused of politicising courts and the civil service, as well as staging lopsided elections.
The interim government had already repeatedly vowed to hold elections before June 2026, but said the more time it had to enact reforms, the better.
– Reform of ‘utmost importance’ –
The key Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), seen as the election frontrunner, has in recent weeks been pushing hard for polls to be held by December.
Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman, in a speech to officers in May, also said that elections should be held by December, according to both Bangladeshi media and military sources.
Days after that speech, the government warned that political power struggles risked jeopardising gains that have been made.
“Those who organise such elections are later viewed as culprits, and those who assume office through them become targets of public hatred,” Yunus said on Friday.
“One of the biggest responsibilities of this government is to ensure a transparent… and widely participatory election so that the country does not fall into a new phase of crisis,” he added.
“That is why institutional reform is of utmost importance.”
Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024 after Hasina’s government launched a crackdown in a bid to cling to power, according to the United Nations.
Hasina, 77, fled by helicopter to her old ally India and she has defied an extradition order to return to Dhaka.
Her trial opened in absentia this month.
Yunus said “reforms, trials, and elections” were the three “core mandates” of his government.
“The sacrifices made by our students and people will be in vain if good governance cannot be established,” he said.
The Election Commission will “present a detailed roadmap” for the vote “at an appropriate time”, the interim leader said without specifying a date.
“We have been in dialogue with all stakeholders to organise the most free, fair, competitive, and credible election in the history of Bangladesh,” Yunus added.
sa/pjm/rsc