Will Ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League Join The Electoral Process?
By Nava Thakuria, New Age Islam
9 June 2025
As the 13th Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh are approaching even with some issues with the exact timing of polls, one can wonder if ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League will be able to join the electoral process. Soon after the interim government head Dr Muhammad Yunus declared about the next general election on the eve of Eid-ul-Azha, speculations in Dhaka started rising on the fate of Bangladesh’s oldest political party. The country’s lone Nobel laureate, who made the chief advisor of the caretaker government, following a student-led public uprising ousted Hasina on 5 August 2024, stated in a televised address to the nation that the polls will be conducted in the first half of April next year.
(Sheikh Hasina)
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Speaking about three mandates for the current administration (namely reform, justice and elections), Dr Yunus did not forget to mention about the public sufferings in Hasina's regime for decades. He asserted that during the last 16 years of the authoritarian government, a large number of people disappeared to suppress political dissent and many of them were detained in disappearance centres (recently three came to light in Dhaka, Chapainawabganj and Bogra localities). Admitting that Bangladesh is ‘in a state of war’, Dr Yunus called upon the people to remain united against the fugitive premier, who named ‘more than a thousand infrastructure and institutions in the country’ after her parents, siblings, and relatives. All these names (including those of cantonments, air bases, naval ships, mega bridges, roads, establishments, schools, colleges, universities, hospitals, research centres, etc.) have been changed now.
Elaborating on the government-formed reform commissions, based on which the National Consensus Commission has been discussing with various mainstream politicians, the widely admired teacher turned baker turned social business preacher added that the commission will announce the July Charter, based on the consensus of all political parties, very soon and present to the nation as it was promised. His address also highlighted 1.2 million Rohingya people, now living in Bangladesh, who escaped Myanmar following a war like situation in Rakhine province and the recent commitment from the Myanmar military rulers to receive back around 180,000 eligible Rohingyas.
The prime opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which was insisting for an early election, expressed disappointment that mid-April is a bad choice for polls because of extreme heat, rains and examinations in educational institutions. Similarly, the Communist Party of Bangladesh, Revolutionary Workers Party of Bangladesh and Amar Bangladesh Party emphasized on the polls in the coming winter. However, the newly launched National Citizen Party along with Nagarik Oikya and Jatiya Ganatantrik Party welcomed the poll timing. Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami leaders also appreciated the election roadmap. It may be mentioned that Jamaat was recently allowed by the Supreme Court of Bangladesh to restore its registration as a political party. Once maligned for its pro-Pakistani roles during the 1971 Liberation War and subsequently banned, the Islamic party now prepares for participating in the forthcoming general election. Political observers believe that along with BNP, the Jamaat has now emerged as a front runner in the polls after consolidating a large volume of religious voters in the Muslim majority nation.
Till now, however it’s not yet clear if Awami League will be able to participate in the polls, because all kinds of its activities have been banned by the government under a modified anti-terror law and the election authorities also suspended the registration. Besides Hasina, who is taking an unofficial shelter in Delhi, hundreds of party leaders are still on the run to escape the arrest. Many of them will have to face legal battles against a number of police complaints lodged in their home country. Some of them commented on social media that Dr Yunus was simply buying time and spreading a wrong narrative against the leaders of Awami League. An America based Awami League leader condemned the declaration of ‘so-called elections’ arguing that Hasina was democratically elected and according to the Bangladesh Constitution she should continue with the position till 2029.
Even Hasina herself also faces an extradition directive from the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) of Bangladesh to get her produced before the tribunal on 16 June next. Dhaka recently introduced a series of new currency notes where the mandatory image of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has been replaced by natural landscapes, historic palaces, heritage sites (including Hindu and Buddhist temples), etc. The existing notes with the image of Hasina’s father continue to be in circulation and those will be wiped out in due course of time. However, while talking to this writer from Dhaka a number of journalists, revealed that the newly designed banknotes are scarcely available among the people. They guess, the new notes are printed with a minimal number on an experimental basis.
URl: https://www.newageislam.com/current-affairs/ousted-sheikh-hasina-awami-league-electoral/d/135811
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