Bangladesh

The war involving Iran, United States and Israel is increasingly affecting energy supplies far beyond the Middle East, with Bangladesh now scrambling to secure fuel imports after disruptions to regional shipping routes.

Bangladeshi officials say the country has begun receiving diesel shipments from suppliers including China and India, allowing authorities to secure enough fuel to meet roughly one month of national demand. Arrangements are also being made to secure supplies for an additional month.

The South Asian nation of about 175 million people depends heavily on imported energy, with roughly 95% of its fuel requirements sourced from abroad. The disruption of Middle Eastern oil flows following the war has therefore exposed Bangladesh to severe supply risks.

Fuel Rationing and Economic Disruptions

To manage the supply shortage, authorities have introduced emergency measures including fuel rationing for vehicles, restrictions on diesel sales and the temporary closure of universities.

Energy shortages are also affecting Bangladesh’s critical export industries. The country is the world’s second-largest clothing exporter after China, and many garment factories rely on diesel-powered generators during power outages.

Industry leaders say the situation has worsened since the conflict began in late February. Power cuts have doubled to as much as five hours per day, forcing factories to rely more heavily on backup generators.

Mahmud Hasan Khan, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said many companies are struggling to obtain sufficient diesel to keep their operations running during electricity outages.

The shortages threaten to disrupt production in one of Bangladesh’s most important economic sectors, which accounts for the majority of the country’s export earnings.

Emergency Diesel Shipments Arrive

To stabilise supplies, the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has arranged diesel shipments from international traders.

Energy officials say around 60,000 metric tons of diesel are currently being delivered by three trading companies, with another 90,000 metric tons expected to arrive later this month.

A cargo of approximately 27,000 metric tons from PetroChina has already arrived at Chittagong Port, while another shipment of roughly 28,000 metric tons from Vitol is waiting at the port’s outer anchorage.

Additional supplies are also arriving through a cross-border pipeline from India’s Numaligarh Refinery, which is currently providing about 5,000 metric tons of diesel. Officials said negotiations are underway to secure a further 30,000 metric tons from Indian Oil Corporation.

Bangladesh typically consumes about 380,000 metric tons of diesel each month. However, officials estimate that rationing measures have reduced current demand to around 270,000 metric tons per month.

Oil Imports Threatened by Hormuz Disruptions

While refined diesel cargoes have continued to arrive, Bangladesh faces greater risks in securing crude oil shipments for its domestic refineries.

The country imports about 1.4 million metric tons of crude oil annually under long-term supply agreements with Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

However, shipments from these suppliers must travel through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, which has been heavily disrupted by the war. Officials say at least one cargo of around 100,000 tons from Saudi Aramco has already been delayed in the Gulf due to the ongoing crisis.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most important energy transit routes, and any prolonged disruption could have far-reaching consequences for countries heavily dependent on imported fuel.

Gas Shortages Add to Energy Crisis

Bangladesh’s energy difficulties extend beyond diesel shortages. Severe natural gas shortages have already forced the closure of four of the country’s five state-run fertiliser factories.

Authorities have redirected the available gas supply toward electricity generation in an effort to stabilise power production during the crisis.

The combination of diesel shortages, disrupted oil imports and limited gas supplies is placing growing pressure on Bangladesh’s energy system at a time when global fuel markets are already experiencing heightened volatility.

Analysis: Energy Dependence Exposes Economic Vulnerability

Bangladesh’s struggle to secure diesel supplies illustrates how the war involving Iran is affecting energy-importing economies far beyond the immediate conflict zone.

Countries that rely heavily on imported fuel are particularly vulnerable to disruptions in global energy shipping routes, especially those linked to the Strait of Hormuz. Even temporary interruptions can lead to fuel shortages, higher prices and broader economic disruption.

For Bangladesh, the situation highlights the structural risks created by its dependence on imported energy. Industries such as garments, which rely on stable electricity supplies and backup diesel generators, are especially exposed to supply shocks.

Although emergency shipments from China and India have temporarily stabilised supplies, the situation remains fragile. If the conflict in the Middle East continues to disrupt oil shipments or drive up prices, Bangladesh could face prolonged energy shortages with significant implications for its economy and export industries.

With information from Reuters.

Introduction

In 1974, Muhammad Yunus began experimenting with an initiative to give small loans to impoverished rural women to foster a sense of empowerment through entrepreneurial start-ups – an initiative that was institutionalised through the famous Grameen Bank. In just a couple of years, this initiative had snowballed into the United Nations declaring 2005 the International Year of Microcredit, with Yunus winning the Nobel Peace Prize for economic development.

In an age of international globalisation and neoliberal theories, microcredit seemed to be the solution to the ills of the developing world. Economists, development theorists, and journalists began to discuss the multiple success stories from the Grameen Bank and the vast impact small loans were having on people.

But a much darker reality came to take place. Although Yunus said that credit is a human right, he failed to address the fact that debt follows. Stories like Razia’s became far too frequent.

The Feminisation of Debt: Razia’s Story

Razia had taken out an initial microcredit loan of around $50 from Grameen Bank to put food on the table and pay for her children’s education; to her, this money was a lifeline to meet her family’s immediate needs. She was offered an interest rate of 20%, which she did not initially realise due to her limited fiscal literacy, and she could not pay.

Loan sharks targeted her family with violent threats when they were unable to meet payment deadlines; she had to sell her heirloom jewellery, her belongings, and eventually her home to make the payment – and even now, she continues to face threats from the loan sharks.

Razia’s story is not uncommon and illustrates how a linear model of microcredit has led to the feminisation of debt: women took out these loans to cover basic needs and fulfil their societal roles as caretakers, only to be uniquely burdened and targeted because they were unable to meet deadlines. This led women to be prone to economic vulnerability, social shame due to the procurement of debt, and violence from debt collectors.

Questioning the Efficacy of Microfinance

In addition to Razia’s story, the reality of the Grameen Bank’s efficacy is also up for debate. More and more economists became wary of the narrative that microfinance helps start income-generating enterprises, and recognised that this led many to feed their families or afford education. Another fundamental assumption was that microfinance would empower the poor, especially women, through microenterprises, given their financial bargaining power within the community. The neoliberal social policies used to model microenterprises for poor rural women to sell their labour or to ‘sub-contract’ their services were broadly not adopted, and forced women into disempowering roles in the informal sector.

Dr. Lamia Karim conducted research on the particular claims on gender empowerment by microcredit programmes and ended up creating a ‘local economy of shame’; repayment of these loans was tied to a woman’s standing and honour within the community, and these norms created environments of disempowerment, subjugation, and stress to repay the loans.

Theoretical Frameworks: From WID to GAD

Yunus’s microcredit initiative followed the theoretical prescriptions of Women in Development (WID), which sought to address gender-based economic disparities and integrate women into existing economic systems. The Grameen Bank was able to meet these goals; however, the linear model of empowerment used and the integration of women within the neoliberal economic market failed to meet the overall goals of empowerment.

As organisations, advocates, and economists saw the initial model struggling to meet the holistic goals of empowerment, they integrated theoretical prescriptions from Gender and Development (GAD), which sought to confront the root causes of gender inequality and to meet both the practical and strategic needs of women. This empowers women not only to meet economic goals to ensure survival, but also to develop collective action skills to confront power structures that lead to their subjugation.

Proshika: A New Model for Empowerment

Proshika was formed in 1979 under the WID model and focused on targeting rural communities, but realigned its goals with a GAD model in 2009. Their mission statement was revised to reflect the integration of collective-action training into their microcredit initiatives. As an organisation, they planned to “develop their capacity, so they can claim their due rights from the government” and “ensure life security” – a revolutionary shift within the broader conversation about microcredit.

Proshika had a model very similar to the Grameen Bank microcredit programmes; however, they added organisational spaces for women to meet and discuss community issues, embedding collective action within the programme. When a woman signed up for a loan, she was connected with other women in her community and asked to discuss pressing issues. Proshika organised a total of 42,809 groups; these various groups looked into important societal issues, such as the prevention of child marriage, the prevention of violence against women, and the abolition of dowry practices.

These trainings connected women with existing government systems and taught them how to access the judicial system, enabling them to pursue institutional avenues of change.

Building Social Capital and Political Agency

These spaces within the community allow women to build social credit, serving as places where information flows and as essential spaces for building trust and relationships. They increase social awareness, social interaction outside of one’s family unit, and increase domestic power and civic participation.

Dr Paromita Sanyal studies the role of microfinance agencies in Bangladesh, and credits NGOs such as Proshika for building both vertical and horizontal lines of social credit. Vertical social credit enables women to build essential connections within their own communities, and horizontal social credit allows them to connect with NGOs, politicians, and governing bodies. This axis of power builds political agency within communities and empowers women to challenge restrictive gender norms.

Proshika operates in 8,784 villages, 1,639 unions, 266 sub-districts, 42 districts, and 7 divisions within Bangladesh – they have organised 33,982 female groups across the nation. Through their collective action programmes, they were able to see a statistically significant decrease in child marriages, dowries, and gender-based violence within rural villages.

Towards True Empowerment

Proshika’s microfinance initiative not only enabled income-generating activities in rural villages but also empowered women to make a difference in their communities. Proshika’s success story should serve as a model for reforming existing microfinance institutions and incorporating collective action mechanisms into programmes.

Unlike the Grameen Bank, which focused solely on women’s practical needs, Proshika made an effort to address women’s and community members’ strategic needs. This led to statistically significant decreases in domestic violence and child marriages, as well as increased awareness of government systems and the justice system as a whole, with civic engagement opening accessible avenues for change.

Dr. Andrea Cornwall’s critical feminist analysis of women’s empowerment suggests that true empowerment is about changing asymmetrical power relations and requires building critical consciousness to help people recognise fundamental inequalities. Empowerment is relational and involves the interplay between personal and political to create a process, rather than focusing on an outcome.

Unlike the Grameen Bank, Proshika focused more on the various aspects of empowerment, without adopting a linear view of tangible results. This led to successful grassroots movements that brought attention to women’s structural needs and raised awareness of women’s value to community spaces.

Empowerment comes from changing power relations within the community, and Proshika met both women’s practical and strategic needs. It is essential to address the extreme poverty that women face, but also to build avenues for them to challenge the institutions they participate in.

Tarique Rahman, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which swept to a landslide victory in last week’s parliamentary elections, has been sworn in as the country’s first elected prime minister since deadly protests in 2024, which resulted in the ouster of the previous government and its prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

The political alliance led by Rahman’s party won 212 seats in the Jatiya Sangsad, Bangladesh’s parliament, in Thursday’s elections, leaving its main competitor, the alliance led by Jamaat-e-Islami, with 77.

On Tuesday, Rahman took his oath of office, and newly elected MPs pledged loyalty to their country inside the oath room of the parliament building as they were sworn in by Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin.

Foreign officials, among them Pakistan’s foreign minister and the speaker of India’s Parliament, were also present.

Here is what we know about the people who will be running Bangladesh’s new government:

Who are the new cabinet members?

Twenty-five full ministers in the new cabinet took their oaths during a separate ceremony in Dhaka on Tuesday afternoon. The 25 have been drawn overwhelmingly from the BNP and its close allies.

Among the state (junior) ministers appointed to Rahman’s government are Nurul Haque and Zonayed Saki, first-time parliamentarians, who were prominent voices during the 2024 protests.

While members of the cabinet have been announced, the ministries they will be responsible for have not yet been confirmed. Here’s a look at who some of them are.

Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir

Alamgir, who has served as secretary-general of the BNP since 2016, was elected to his seat in parliament by the constituency of Thakurgaon-1, a district in northwestern Bangladesh.

Alamgir, 78, served as a member of parliament from 2001 to 2006 under the previous BNP government, led by Rahman’s late mother, Khaleda Zia, during which he was also state minister for agriculture and later for civil aviation and tourism.

After the end of that government’s term, a caretaker administration took over until elections in 2008, which Alamgir stood in but did not win. He remained a senior member of the BNP outside parliament.

In October 2023, Alamgir was detained by police the day after mass antigovernment protests swept through Dhaka when Hasina’s Awami League party was in power. The police said he had been detained for questioning in connection with the violence that erupted during those demonstrations.

When the BNP win was announced last week, Alamgir hailed the victory and called the BNP “a party of the people”.

Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury

Chowdhury was elected from the Chattogram-11 constituency, which covers the Bandar and Patenga areas of Chattogram city in southeastern Bangladesh.

From 2001 to 2004, Chowdhury served as minister of commerce under the previous BNP administration. He is a member of the BNP’s standing committee.

Before last week’s vote, Chowdhury said that if elected, the BNP would govern by investing in people, “in health, in education and upskilling” and by supporting “artisans, the weavers” and small industries with credit as well as helping them access international markets, including by helping them with their branding.

Iqbal Hasan Mahmud Tuku

Tuku, 75, has been elected as a member of parliament for the Sirajganj-2 constituency in North Bengal.

Tuku is a member of the BNP Standing Committee, the party’s top policymaking body.

He is a veteran BNP figure who has been elected to parliament multiple times and has held important party roles. From 2001 to 2006, he served as the state minister for power. In 2006, he also briefly served as the state minister for agriculture.

In 2007, during the military-backed interim government, a special anticorruption court in Dhaka sentenced Tuku to nine years in prison in a case filed against him by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). The ACC accused Tuku of concealing information about assets worth 49.6 million takas (roughly $400,000).

The High Court upheld his conviction and jail sentence in 2023 after a lengthy appeal process. However, in September 2025, a year after the overthrow of the Awami League government, the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court acquitted Tuku.

Khalilur Rahman

Khalilur Rahman is a technocratic minister, appointed for his expertise rather than as a party politician. He is not a member of parliament.

He served as national security adviser in the interim administration headed by Muhammad Yunus, which took over to oversee a transition after Hasina’s ouster.

He also served as the government’s representative for the Rohingya issue during Yunus’s tenure. The refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar in southern Bangladesh are sheltering more than one million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled Myanmar in 2017 to escape a military crackdown.

Afroza Khanam Rita

The only woman cabinet minister, Rita is a first-time member of parliament but comes from a political family: Her late father was a four-times MP. Rita is also the chairwoman of the Monno Group of Industries, a conglomerate whose firms produce ceramic ware, textiles and agricultural machinery – primarily for export.

Asaduzzaman

Asaduzzaman, was elected from the Jhenaidah-1 (Shailkupa) constituency, which covers Shailkupa upazila in Jhenaidah district in southwestern Bangladesh.

Dipen Dewan

Dewan, 62, a Chakma Buddhist leader, is expected to be named minister of Chittagong Hill Tracts affairs. Dewan won from the Rangamati constituency.

Chakma Buddhists are an ethnic group of Tibeto-Burman speaking people. They are indigenous to the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh and parts of northeastern India.

Nitai Roy Chowdhury

Chowdhury, a Hindu leader, is widely expected to become the minister of cultural affairs.

Chowdhury, 77, has served as a senior adviser and strategist for the BNP’s top leaders.

How significant are these appointments?

During campaigning, the BNP pledged to meet the people’s demand for an elected government with real legitimacy. Therefore, ministers and cabinet members can expect a significant amount of scrutiny, experts said.

Khandakar Tahmid Rejwan, lecturer in global studies and governance at the Independent University, Bangladesh, told Al Jazeera: “The appointees in their respective fields will also face an invisible yet significant pressure to prove themselves more effective and distinctive than the previous administrations, both the interim government and, of course, the Awami League-led government under Sheikh Hasina.”

He added: “It will be particularly interesting to observe whether, after a youth-led mass uprising, the core of executive power is taken over by the old guard or by new faces that reflect diversity in terms of age, gender, ethnicity and religion.”

While two prominent figures from the 2024 student uprisings have been named as state ministers – Nurul Haque and Zonayed Saki – Rejwan added that leaders of the student-led National Citizen Party, which was founded after the 2024 uprising, had made a “strategic mistake” by allying with Jamaat instead of the BNP.

“They had the option to form an alliance with the BNP, which they later abandoned in favour of Jamaat. Given these political dynamics, it is unlikely that any student leaders will receive cabinet positions.”

Who attended the ceremony to swear in the new cabinet?

Several foreign delegations were in Bangladesh to attend the ceremony.

They included Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu and Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay.

India was represented by Om Birla, the speaker of its lower house in Parliament. Pakistani Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal also attended.

Leaders and representatives from Nepal and the United Kingdom, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Brunei were among those who were invited to attend.

‘Let the practice of democracy continue,’ said Yunus, who has overseen the country’s post-uprising transition since 2024.

Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus has announced he is resigning to pave way for a new government elected several days ago.

Speaking in a farewell broadcast to the nation on Monday, Yunus said the interim government he oversees “is stepping down”.

“But let the practice of democracy, freedom of speech, and fundamental rights that has begun not be halted,” he said.

An 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, Yunus returned from self-imposed exile in August 2024 to serve as Bangladesh’s chief adviser after a student-led uprising toppled the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Bangladesh held its first general elections since that uprising on February 12, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Tarique Rahman, won a landslide victory.

Rahman, a scion of one of the country’s most powerful political dynasties, is set to serve as prime minister of the incoming government when it is sworn in on Tuesday, according to Bangladeshi media.

Yunus praised the recent elections, which European Union observers called “credible and competently managed” as a “benchmark for future elections”.

“The people, voters, political parties, and stakeholder institutions linked to the election have set a commendable example,” Yunus said.

‘We must remain united’

Rahman’s BNP-led alliance won at least 212 seats in the 300-seat parliament, giving it a strong mandate to lead. In second place was the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which won 77 seats, positioning it as the main opposition party. Hasina’s Awami League party was barred from participating.

Rahman appealed for unity in the wake of his party’s victory, saying “our paths and opinions may differ, but in the interest of the country, we must remain united”.

In addition to electing their new representatives, Bangladeshi voters also endorsed sweeping democratic reforms in a national referendum.

The lengthy document of reforms, known as the “July Charter” after the month when the uprising that toppled Hasina began, proposes term limits for prime ministers, the creation of an upper house of parliament, stronger presidential powers and greater judicial independence. It enshrines a key pillar of Yunus’s post-uprising transition agenda.

The referendum noted that approval would make the charter “binding on the parties that win” the election, obliging them to endorse it.

“Sweeping away the ruins, we rebuilt institutions and set the course for reforms,” said Yunus, praising the reforms.

However, several parties raised questions before the vote, and the reforms will still require ratification by the new parliament.

“The challenge now is to ensure good governance, law and order, and public safety, and to establish a rights-based state, which was at the heart of the aspirations of the 2024 mass uprising,” Rezaul Karim Rony, a Dhaka-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera.

The landmark Bangladesh election held last week was ⁠triggered by a Gen Z-led uprising in 2024, yet a youth-led National Citizen Party (NCP) – born out of the uprising – managed to secure only six parliamentary seats out of the 297, the results of which are available.

The results, officially declared on Saturday, showed that voters overwhelmingly chose the long-established Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which comfortably defeated a Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance, of which the NCP is a key partner.

Tarique Rahman of the BNP, which has already governed the country three times, most recently from 2001 to 2006, is set to become prime minister following one of the most consequential elections in the country’s history.

Many young Bangladeshis who voted for the first time described the election as historic, but falling short of their expectations.

“As Generation Z, we didn’t get the expected representation and results after shedding so much blood and losing lives,” student Afsana Hossain Himi told Al Jazeera.

“Still, we are very hopeful. We have representatives from the younger generation, and we hope they will do something good,” she said, referring to the six NCP winners.

Many young Bangladeshis felt the NCP failed to build up a big enough support base in time for ‌the vote.

“They did not live up to the hopes and dreams people had after the 2024 uprising,” 23-year-old university student Sohanur Rahman said. “The NCP’s alignment with Jamaat felt like a betrayal, and many young voters like us chose not to support them.”

NCP spokesperson Asif Mahmud said the ⁠party would rebuild itself in opposition and focus on local government elections due in a year.

‘A new beginning’

The South Asian country of 173 million people has one of the world’s youngest populations, with approximately 44 percent of its vote bank – 56 million – between the ages of 18 and 37.

The election outcome is widely seen as a chance to restore stability after months of upheaval that followed the 2024 uprising, which toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Security forces at the time, acting on her orders, killed more than 1,400 people, according to the United Nations. Hasina has since been handed a death sentence in absentia for the crackdown.

Hasina, currently living in exile in New Delhi, and Rahman’s mother, Khaleda Zia, have for decades towered over the country’s political landscape. Rahman’s father, Ziaur Rahman, a key figure in Bangladesh’s independence struggle, also led the nation from 1977 until his assassination in 1981.

Rahman, who is likely to be sworn in on Tuesday, has pledged that his administration will prioritise the rule of law.

“Our position is clear. Peace and order must be maintained at any cost. No wrongdoing or unlawful activity will be tolerated,” he said at a news conference on Saturday. “Regardless of party, religion, race, or differing opinions, under no circumstances will attacks by the strong against the weak be accepted. Justice will be our guiding principle.”

Shakil Ahmed, a government and politics professor at Jahangirnagar University, said ⁠the Jamaat-NCP alliance pushed away young voters who had wanted a new political class after the fall of Hasina.

“Many saw it as a retreat into old politics rather than a break from it,” Ahmed said. “This decision divided the youth vote and strengthened support for the BNP under Tarique Rahman, which appeared more organised and capable of governing.”

However, for student Farhan Ullash, the vote felt like a long-awaited break with the past.

“After all, the election was a kind of dream for us, a new beginning for Bangladesh,” he said. “I know already BNP is going to make the government. I hope they will listen to us.”

“In the interest of the country, we must remain united.” Bangladeshi Prime Minister-in-waiting Tarique Rahman urged opposition parties to work with the incoming BNP government after its landslide victory in the first elections since Sheikh Hasina’s ouster.

In the end, the 13th parliamentary election in Bangladesh was not a revolution. It was a reckoning.

When the ballots were counted, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) had secured a decisive victory, returning to power after years in the political wilderness under Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule.

Most headlines framed it as a dramatic comeback, and rightfully so. But beneath the surface, this was less a tidal wave of voter choice than a carefully navigated current. This was a contest shaped by frustration and the arithmetic of first-past-the-post (FPTP).

To understand why BNP prevailed, one must first dispense with the lazy narrative that this was a Jamaat moment squandered. When the results became clear, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) secured 68 seats, while the Jamaat-led bloc secured 77 seats in parliament. That is no small feat for a party whose previous best parliamentary showing was just 18 seats in 1991. Many analysts had suggested Jamaat’s support had grown in the run-up to the poll, and the data vindicated that claim. But in an FPTP system, a swelling vote share does not automatically translate into 151 seats out of 300 elected constituencies.

This election was not driven by any momentous revolution, even though it came on the back of a mass uprising that toppled Hasina’s autocracy in August 2024. But there was no deep ideological rupture, and no permanent reordering of voter loyalties, at least not on a scale that would rupture the very fabric of the country’s electoral mindset.

And of course, it was not a national wave election, in which a single mood sweeps towards a particular party across class, gender and region. What unfolded was a hybrid: Largely a normal election with significant deviations, but a predictable outcome.

Party loyalists mostly stayed home. Swing voters mattered. And in pockets of the country, frustration with BNP’s local leadership triggered temporary defections – many of them to Jamaat or NCP.

The anger was real. After August 5, BNP’s grassroots machinery performed abysmally. Petty leaders across districts were accused of corruption and extortion. In rural market towns and urban peripheries, resentment simmered.

Voters were not merely disappointed; they were, to use the language heard in tea stalls and union parishad courtyards, “really, really pissed off”. That fury explains Jamaat’s surge. A portion of BNP loyalists and a significant share of swing voters drifted towards the promise of an “honest alternative”.

But drift is not destiny.

BNP’s base, historically broader and organisationally deeper than Jamaat’s, did not collapse. Even after defections, it remained numerically larger. BNP’s nomination strategy proved unexpectedly shrewd.

Where Jamaat fielded relatively unknown but ideologically trusted figures, BNP leaned on its old guard – candidates with entrenched name recognition and dense informal networks.

That mattered, particularly in rural Bangladesh. Urban, educated voters may be thrilled by the rhetoric of ethical governance. For them, the idea of an incorruptible, ideologically disciplined candidate resonates as a moral reset.

But rural voters are pragmatic actors. They operate within intricate patronage webs. An MP is not an abstraction; he (and it is usually he) is a broker of safety nets, jobs, stability and dispute resolution. Honesty, in isolation, does not guarantee access. Familiarity does.

Thus emerged the central voter dilemma. Disgusted with BNP’s excesses, many considered a switch. In constituencies where Jamaat fielded a well-known leader, some made it. But elsewhere, voters encountered candidates they did not know, whose “honesty” they could not verify, and whose party offered little beyond moral branding.

Faced with uncertainty, they chose the “devil” they knew.

Jamaat compounded its structural limitations with strategic missteps. Its awkward posture on women’s issues – oscillating between reassurance and dog whistles – failed to convince large segments of female voters who have, over decades, carved out expanding public roles.

Bangladesh’s social transformation is not cosmetic, and women are central to its labour force, education system and microcredit economy. A party that cannot articulate a credible vision for gender equality cannot win a national wave.

More damaging was Jamaat’s revisionist flirtation with the memory of 1971. The Liberation War is the country’s moral founding document. Attempts to soften or reinterpret Jamaat’s historical role alienated voters far beyond the secular-liberal elite.

Even conservative families drew red lines around 1971. The prevailing mode of public sentiment was probably blunt: One may forgive; one does not forget.

Yet Jamaat’s performance was still historic. Jamaat-e-Islami and its allied coalition secured 77 seats, a testament not only to its disciplined cadre but also to BNP’s own misdeeds. Extortion scandals and local arrogance pushed voters into Jamaat’s arms.

In a tightly contested FPTP landscape, even a few percentage points can flip dozens of seats. Jamaat capitalised on that anger with precision in Rajshahi, Khulna and Rangpur divisions, where its organisational muscle is strongest.

But precision is not the same as breadth. Jamaat’s surge remained regionally concentrated. Its support varied sharply by class, gender, education and age. That is the opposite of a wave election. Without uniform national momentum, being a victor in FPTP is not an easy task.

Then there was the ghost in the machine: The Awami League (AL). Much commentary underestimated its residual vote. Surveys suggested a hardcore 5 to 7 percent would never defect, but beyond that lay a larger bloc – perhaps 20 to 25 percent – either undecided or unwilling to disclose preferences. In this election, that particular bloc mattered a lot.

Pre-election field research and multiple polls indicated that many non-hardcore AL voters were breaking towards the BNP – probably not out of ideological alignment but out of instrumental rationality. They believed BNP would form the government and wanted access to services through the winning MP.

In areas where BNP’s old guard had harassed AL supporters, some abstained or flirted with Jamaat. But nationally, the gravitational pull favoured BNP. Voters wanted to be on the side of the winner. Perception became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The four plausible scenarios before election day clarified the stakes. Without significant AL turnout, BNP would likely secure a plurality in a tight race. With moderate AL support, it would win a comfortable majority. With overwhelming AL backing, even a two-thirds majority was conceivable. Only a full-blown Jamaat wave – a cross-class, cross-gender national embrace – could have reversed the equation.

That wave never materialised.

BNP’s victory, then, is a product of structural advantage, strategic candidate selection and the rational calculations of the country’s traditional voters. It was aided by Jamaat’s self-inflicted wounds on women’s rights and historical memory. It was enabled, paradoxically, by BNP’s own local misconduct, which inflated Jamaat’s vote share but not enough to overcome FPTP mathematics.

One more footnote of this election deserves attention: The emergence of the National Citizen Party (NCP), which captured five seats. For a new party born out of an uprising, in the highly polarised political environment of the South Asian nation, that is no small accomplishment.

It signals a hunger, however modest, for alternatives outside the new binary of BNP and Jamaat. Under proportional representation, such a party might flourish. Under FPTP, five seats is both a breakthrough and a ceiling.

Bangladesh’s 13th parliamentary election was, in the end, a story of limits: The limits of anger, the limits of moral branding, the limits of revisionism, and the enduring power of organisational depth in a winner-take-all system.

BNP won not because it inspired a nation, but because it understood it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

As rickshaw puller Anwar Pagla turned into the road leading to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) office in Gulshan, Dhaka, on the afternoon after the parliamentary election, a small commotion stirred. His rickshaw had a Bangladeshi flag fixed to one side of the hood and the BNP’s flag to the other. Pagla is an ardent supporter.

“They call me mad because I consider this party everything in my life. But it doesn’t matter. We have won and Bangladesh will now be better,” he told Al Jazeera.

Nearly two decades after it last governed, the BNP returned to power after a landslide victory in Thursday’s parliamentary election.

The Election Commission published the gazette of the members of parliament elected, a final official seal on the election process, on Saturday. The centre-right BNP’s alliance secured 212 of the 300 seats. The alliance led by its main rival, the Jamaat-e-Islami – Bangladesh’s largest religion-based party – secured 77.

Those elections came a year and a half after a nationwide protest movement ousted the country’s former leadership and saw 1,400 people killed in the streets. Bangladesh has been led by a caretaker government since Sheikh Hasina, who led the crackdown, fled the country.

The BNP’s Tarique Rahman, set to become Bangladesh’s next prime minister, greeted supporters on Friday, saying he was “grateful for the love” they had shown him. He promised throughout BNP’s campaign to restore democracy in Bangladesh.

Mahdi Amin, BNP’s election steering committee spokesperson, said Rahman pledged that, as prime minister, he would safeguard the rights and freedoms of citizens.

Thursday’s vote passed largely peacefully, and, despite alleging “inconsistencies and fabrications” during the vote count, Jamaat accepted the outcome of the election on Saturday.

BNP had recently lost its former chairperson, Khaleda Zia – Tarique Rahman’s mother and a two-time prime minister – who died on December 30.

Khaleda Zia had led the party to power in 1991 and again in 2001. Two decades later, her son has returned the BNP to government.

At the party’s Gulshan office that afternoon, BNP activist Kamal Hossain stood among a jubilant crowd. Visibly emotional, he reflected on what he described as years of repression.

“For so long, I felt the regime of Sheikh Hasina would never go,” he said. Referring to the July 2024 uprising that forced her to flee, he added: “Now people have given us this mandate. We have taken back Bangladesh.”

Hossain said the new government’s immediate priorities should be job creation and curbing inflation.

“Prices have been hurting us, and there are too many unemployed young people. The government must address this immediately,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, remained unusually quiet on Friday.

The calm was largely by design: the BNP chose not to hold victory processions.

The Jamaat head office in the capital’s Moghbazar also appeared subdued on Friday. A few supporters around the head office expressed disappointment.

“There has been engineering in the counting process, and the media has been biased against the Jamaat alliance,” said Abdus Salam, a supporter near the office. He argued that a fair process would have yielded more seats.

Others, like Germany-based Jamaat supporter Muaz Abdullah, said Jamaat’s defeat was a failure of organisation.

“In many constituencies, Jamaat didn’t run a good election campaign. They didn’t even have proper polling agents in several places,” he said.

Though the BNP and Jamaat were allies for years, they faced each other as rivals in this election. The campaign period saw sporadic violence and months of divisive online rhetoric.

Sujan Mia, a BNP activist outside the party office, struck a conciliatory tone. “We do not want enmity. We should focus on building the nation,” he said.

Rezaul Karim Rony, editor of Joban Magazine and a political analyst who closely followed the BNP’s campaign, said the party’s victory is likely to allay concerns of a lurch to the right in Bangladesh.

“Through this election, people have, in a sense, freed the country’s politics from that risk,” he argued.

However, Rony cautioned that the real test begins now.

“The challenge is to ensure good governance, law and order, and public safety – and to establish a rights-based state,” he said, describing those goals as being at the “heart of the aspirations of the 2024 mass uprising.”

Michael Kugelman, senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council, said a BNP victory represents “a blow to the politics of change that have galvanised Bangladesh since the 2024 mass uprising”.

“The BNP, dynastic and long saddled with corruption allegations, reflects the principles that the Gen Z protesters rejected,” he said.

The party will now face pressure from both the public and the opposition to push beyond old political habits, Kugelman added.

“If the new government falls back on repressive or retributive politics, reform advocates will be disappointed and democratisation efforts will be set back,” he said.

The outcome might be the least disruptive for the region as a whole.

Pakistan might have preferred a Jamaat win, given the party’s historical affinity for Islamabad. But Pakistan has also had strong relations with the BNP, Kugelman pointed out, as has China.

And “India much prefers the BNP to Jamaat,” he added, noting that the BNP is no longer in alliance with Jamaat, which New Delhi believes takes positions contrary to its interests.

Back at the BNP’s office in Dhaka, however, geopolitics felt distant.

Shamsud Doha, a party leader, had brought his two grandchildren to share the moment.

“Nothing matches this feeling,” he said. “We have long suffered under autocratic rule. Now it is our time to build the nation.”

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has claimed victory in the country’s first election since a student-led uprising that ousted longtime leader Sheikh Hasina in 2024.

Unofficial results confirmed by election officials to Al Jazeera on Friday showed the BNP winning 209 seats, easily crossing the 151-seat threshold needed for a majority in parliament.

Its leader, Tarique Rahman, the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, is now set to become the country’s next prime minister. BNP officials said the party expected to form a government by Sunday.

The BNP was followed by Jamaat-e-Islami, which secured 68 seats in Thursday’s polls – its highest-ever tally.

The party, which is led by Shafiqur Rahman and contested for the first time since a 2013 ban that was lifted after Hasina’s ouster, said it is not “satisfied” with the vote count and raised “serious questions about the integrity of the results process”.

The National Citizen Party (NCP), led by youth activists instrumental in toppling Hasina and part of a Jamaat-led alliance, won just six of the 30 seats that it contested.

The Election Commission has yet to formally announce the final tally, which is expected either later on Friday or on Saturday.

Turnout stood at almost 60 percent of registered voters, according to the Election Commission, well over the nearly 42 percent in the last election in 2024.

The election featured a record number of parties, more than 50, and at least 2,000 candidates, many of them independents. The parliament comprises 350 lawmakers, with 50 seats reserved for women.

More than 127 million people were eligible to cast their votes, with many expressing enthusiasm for what was widely seen as Bangladesh’s first competitive vote in years.

An interim government led by Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, 85, has been in office since Hasina fled to India in 2024 after widespread protests led largely by young people, who were killed in their hundreds by security forces.

Tarique Rahman, who has never held government office, returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years of self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom. The 60-year-old has yet to comment on the unofficial results but on Friday, he waved from his car as he left his house in the capital, Dhaka, for a mosque.

In a statement, the BNP asked people to refrain from large celebrations and offer special prayers instead.

“Despite winning … by a large margin of votes, no celebratory procession or rally shall be organised,” the party said in a statement.

‘Litmus test’

The 78-year-old former leader, Hasina, was sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity for the bloody crackdown on protesters during her final months in power, and remains in hiding in India. Her Awami League party was barred from the election.

BNP members have said the party would formally request Hasina’s extradition from India. In its manifesto, the BNP promised to prioritise job creation, protect low-income and marginal households and ensure fair prices to farmers. Tarique Rahman has also promised to revive a stagnant economy, reset ties with countries in the region and crack down on corruption.

Abbas Faiz, an independent South Asia researcher, said the election was a test of how Bangladesh was “ready for democracy”.

“Also, a test of the political parties which have been able to take part in the elections. They have actually understood the aspirations and the wishes of the people of their country for the removal of corrupt practices in the administration and parliament,” Faiz told Al Jazeera.

He added the election is the “litmus test” which puts responsibility on the “shoulders of the new government”.

But Faiz explained that the election would have been “fairer” if all parties, including the Awami League, were allowed to participate.

“But in a way, the problem lies with the Awami League itself, because it did not reimage itself as a party that could be trusted by the general populace in Bangladesh,” he said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the US ambassador to Bangladesh, Brent T Christensen, were among the first to congratulate Rahman on his party’s victory. China’s embassy in Dhaka also congratulated the BNP over its election showing.

The election commission also said some 48 million ‌voters chose “Yes” ‌while about 23 million said “No” in a referendum on constitutional reforms held alongside the election, though there was no official word on the outcome.

The changes include two-term limits for prime ministers and stronger judicial independence and women’s representation, while providing for neutral interim governments during election periods and setting up a second house of the 300-seat parliament.

Fahmida Khatun, an economist and executive director of the Dhaka-based Centre for Policy Dialogue, told Al Jazeera that early signals support the perception of a credible election.

Although heavy security was reported across polling stations, “broadly, the voting was peaceful”, Khatun said, pointing to the voter turnout figure as an indicator of healthy participation.

“This indicates citizens wanted to exercise their voting rights and they wanted to choose their own people,” she added.

Several hundred international observers monitored Thursday’s voting, with the European Union’s Election Observation Mission expected to issue a preliminary report on its findings on Sunday.

Votes are still being tallied, but unofficial results in the Bangladesh election suggest that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is ‘clearly leading’. Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury provides an update from Dhaka.

Bangladesh’s leading political candidates have voted in a closely contested general election in Dhaka, pitting the Bangladesh Nationalist Party against a Jamaat-e-Islami-led coalition. It’s the country’s first election since the 2024 ousting of long‑time premier Sheikh Hasina in a Gen Z-led uprising.

The vote is a direct contest between frontrunner Tarique Rahman’s BNP and a Jamaat-e-Islami-led coalition of 11 parties.