Today's Edition
DHAKA (AFP)
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 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 hold 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.
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.
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 had been made.
Up to 1,400 people were killed between July and August 2024 after the previous government launched a crackdown on protests, according to the United Nations. Hasina, who fled to India. 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 Election Commission will "present a detailed roadmap" for the vote "at an appropriate time", the interim leader said without specifying a date.
