Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus's fragile democracy after Hasina

Introduction: a country that voted, but did not turn the page

A historic election under intense pressure

On February 12, 2026, nearly 127 million Bangladeshi voters were called to the polls for the first legislative election since the fall of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024. This vote, overseen by the interim government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, was meant to mark a return to democratic normalcy after eighteen months of chaotic transition. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Tarique Rahman, emerged victorious with a crushing majority of 212 out of 300 seats, according to data compiled by Wikipedia.

But this victory settles nothing. Instead, it opens a new chapter of uncertainty for a country of 170 million people, caught between China's ambitions, India's wariness, and a rising Islamist opposition. The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI), leading a coalition of eleven parties, won 68 to 77 seats, becoming the main opposition force in a completely redrawn political landscape, according to analysis from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The price of political exclusion

What sets this vote apart from every election since 1991 is the total absence of the Awami League (AL), Sheikh Hasina's party, which dominated Bangladeshi political life for nearly twenty years. Banned from political activity since May 2025, formally designated a terrorist organization under an amendment passed in April 2026, the AL has seen its leaders prosecuted before the International Crimes Tribunal, with Hasina herself sentenced to death in absentia in November 2025.

This exclusion raises a question neither Yunus nor the BNP can dodge much longer: can a lasting democracy be built by legally banning the party that, as recently as this year, still drew about 11% voting intention according to a poll by the International Republican Institute cited by Al Jazeera? So far, the answer leans toward fragility rather than consolidation.

The backdrop: Hasina's fall and the birth of an improbable government

The monsoon revolution

It all began in July 2024, when student protests against a civil service quota system escalated into a nationwide uprising, now called the Monsoon Revolution. Facing deadly repression ordered by the government, the Bangladeshi army, led by General Waker-uz-Zaman, refused to fire on protesters and instead facilitated Hasina's flight to India on August 5, 2024, according to the Carnegie Endowment's detailed account.

President Mohammed Shahabuddin dissolved Parliament the next day. Under pressure from student leaders, Muhammad Yunus, then 84 years old and living abroad, was called back to lead an interim government as Chief Adviser, a post equivalent to a de facto prime minister.

An economist facing political chaos

Winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on microcredit, Yunus had no experience in national governance. His mandate, as summarized by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, was to stabilize the economy, organize credible elections, and launch a constitutional reform process through what became known as the July Charter.

Economically, his team managed to stop a free fall. Politically, things proved far more slippery. The repeated postponement of the election date — first floated for December 2025, then April 2026, before settling on February 12, 2026 — fueled accusations of manipulation from every faction.

The Awami League ban: security measure or political revenge

The origins of the measure

In May 2025, citing security concerns, the interim government suspended the Awami League's activities pending rulings from the International Crimes Tribunal on the party's role in the violent repression of summer 2024. The Election Commission suspended its registration shortly after, according to Tribune India's account.

In April 2026, the new BNP-dominated Parliament passed an amendment to the anti-terrorism law formalizing this ban by designating the AL and its affiliates as terrorist organizations. A choice that, according to a researcher cited in the Congressional Research Service report, places Bangladesh in a constitutionally untenable position: holding elections while legally banning a major party from taking part in them.

A continuity that raises questions

Ironically, it is the BNP itself — the AL's historic rival — that chose to maintain, and even reinforce, this ban once in power. The Carnegie Endowment highlights the troubling nature of this continuity: a country claiming to turn the page on authoritarianism is reproducing a pattern in which the opposition has no level playing field.

The Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, itself long banned and then rehabilitated ahead of the 2024 elections, managed to capitalize on the vacuum left by the AL, appealing particularly to young voters disillusioned with the traditional parties.

The July Charter: constitutional reform under strain

What the compromise contains

Signed in October 2024 by more than twenty parties — notably excluding the AL — the July Charter forms the foundation of the reforms sought by the student movement. It notably calls for establishing a bicameral Senate, limiting the number of terms for the prime minister's office, and tightening checks on executive power, according to a report from the Indian Council of World Affairs.

A constitutional referendum on this charter was held simultaneously with the February 12 legislative election. Its adoption was widely hailed as a step toward democratic renewal, though some analysts doubt its actual implementation under a Parliament now two-thirds dominated by a single party.

The fractures that persist

The think tank BTI Transformation Index warns of unresolved tensions between factions: the Jatiyo Nagarik Committee and the National Citizen Party (NCP), both offshoots of the student movement, are demanding local elections be held before the national vote, while the BNP insists the parliamentary election take precedence, according to the BTI Country Report 2026.

This disagreement over electoral sequencing illustrates a deeper rift between the actors who triggered the 2024 revolution and those who, in the end, reaped its political benefits.

Election violence: a documented climate of fear

A campaign under military escort

Roughly 108,000 security personnel, including soldiers, were deployed to secure the February 12 vote, according to figures cited by Al Jazeera. More than 32,000 polling stations were classified as high-risk, receiving the bulk of these reinforcements.

Despite this deployment, violent incidents were reported during the pre-election period, including the death of a BNP activist on January 7, 2026, as well as clashes that left about twenty people injured in the Lalmonirhat district, on the Indian border.

The weight of collective memory

A report from ACLED, an organization specializing in conflict monitoring, notes that this election unfolded under the lingering shadow of the 2024 violence, which killed hundreds during the state's crackdown on student protests, according to ACLED.

This memory weighs directly on the perceived legitimacy of the new government: every act of election violence revives the question of whether Bangladesh has truly shifted paradigms or simply changed hands.

Jamaat-e-Islami: the rise of an organized Islamist force

From marginalized party to main opposition

Long kept on the sidelines of Bangladeshi politics, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami had its registration restored by the Supreme Court in June 2025, clearing the way for its full participation in the 2026 vote. Its eleven-party coalition captured around 77 seats, a dramatic gain compared to its historical results, according to The Diplomat.

This success is partly explained by the AL's absence, but also by an effective strategy of mobilizing young voters, disillusioned both with the traditional BNP and with an interim government seen as too slow to deliver concrete results.

A geopolitical concern for the West

The rise of a structured Islamist party in the second most populous Muslim country in South Asia poses a direct challenge to Western interests in the region, particularly as China ramps up infrastructure investment and India watches the situation with growing unease.

Washington, which awarded Yunus the Congressional Gold Medal, is following this file with particular attention, aware that Bangladeshi political instability could open a strategic space that Beijing would not hesitate to exploit.

China's shadow and the question of regional alliances

Yunus's controversial overtures toward Beijing

During his stewardship of the interim government, Muhammad Yunus stirred controversy by repeatedly reaching out to China, a choice seen by some observers as an attempt to diversify Bangladesh's economic partners away from its historic dependence on India, according to the Indian Express.

This orientation fueled tensions with New Delhi, which still hosts Sheikh Hasina in exile and watches with concern any Sino-Bangladeshi rapprochement in a region where the balance of power remains extremely sensitive.

A test for Western doctrine in South Asia

For Western capitals, Bangladesh represents a textbook case: how do you support a fragile democratic transition without pushing the country into the arms of authoritarian powers if results are slow to materialize? Yunus's bet on multipolar diplomacy could backfire against Western interests if Beijing fills the vacuum left by Western aid deemed insufficient.

The competition for influence between China, India, and Western powers in Bangladesh illustrates, on a smaller scale, the broader struggle for South Asia, where every national election becomes a geostrategic stake far beyond its own borders.

Human rights under the interim government: a mixed record

Unfulfilled promises

According to Human Rights Watch's annual report, the interim government led by Yunus struggled to maintain public order and deliver the promised human rights reforms, despite its initial mandate centered on transitional justice and accountability for perpetrators of violence, according to Human Rights Watch.

The security operation dubbed Operation Devil Hunt, launched in February 2025 to suppress post-Hasina violence, itself drew criticism for methods several human rights organizations deemed disproportionate.

The Rohingya refugee question

Alongside the political transition, Bangladesh continues to host one of the largest refugee populations in the world: the Rohingya fleeing repression in neighboring Myanmar. This humanitarian crisis, largely overshadowed by election news, remains a constant test of administrative capacity for a government already overwhelmed by its own internal challenges.

The new BNP government inherits this responsibility without having, to date, proposed a policy clearly distinct from that of the outgoing interim government.

The army's role: silent arbiter or decisive player

A neutrality of variable geometry

The army's refusal, under General Waker-uz-Zaman, to crack down on protesters in August 2024 was the decisive factor in Hasina's fall. Since then, the armed forces have maintained a discreet but constant presence in managing the transition, notably through the massive deployment of troops during the February 2026 vote.

This closeness between the army and the political process raises legitimate questions about the real balance of power in Bangladesh, a country that has experienced several episodes of direct or indirect military governance since its independence in 1971.

The risk of backsliding

The BTI Transformation Index report explicitly raises the risk of a military intervention if political factions fail to agree on the sequencing of reforms and local elections, a scenario that would recall the darkest hours of Bangladeshi political history.

For now, the army appears to prefer a role as guarantor rather than direct actor, but this stance could shift quickly if the BNP government's legitimacy erodes further.

Lessons for Western democracies

A double-edged model of transition

The Bangladeshi case illustrates the limits of transitions led by well-intentioned technocratic figures lacking traditional political grounding. Muhammad Yunus, despite his international moral stature, could not prevent his management from being perceived as favoring certain factions at the expense of a truly inclusive process.

For Western chancelleries watching or supporting similar transitions elsewhere in the world, Bangladesh offers a clear warning: a caretaker leader's moral legitimacy is not enough to guarantee an electoral process perceived as fully fair by every political actor.

Vigilance that must be maintained

Bangladesh remains an important strategic partner for the West in containing Chinese influence in South Asia, which justifies sustained engagement despite the obvious imperfections of the current democratic process.

Abandoning this file in favor of priorities deemed more urgent elsewhere would be a strategic mistake, given the country's demographic and geographic importance to the regional balance.

What's next: local elections and national cohesion

A timeline still to be set

According to the official electoral calendar, the election of seats reserved for women was scheduled for May 12, 2026, a further step in fully implementing the new parliamentary framework adopted under the July Charter.

Local elections, insistently demanded by the Jatiyo Nagarik Committee and the NCP, remain an unresolved point of friction between the various factions born of the 2024 movement, with no firm date announced to date.

Political reintegration, an explosive file

The question of the Awami League's eventual reintegration into Bangladeshi politics remains one of the most explosive issues for the country's future. The BTI Transformation Index stresses that the new government will need to develop a clear strategy for this file, or risk seeing the tensions that sparked the 2024 revolution resurface.

Without a credible mechanism for political reconciliation, Bangladesh risks reproducing the pattern of exclusion and polarization that fed two decades of instability even before Hasina's fall.

The Bangladeshi diaspora and the battle over the international narrative

A community divided over how to interpret events

The Bangladeshi diaspora, particularly large in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, remains deeply divided over how to interpret Hasina's fall and the legitimacy of the new government. Some see a deserved democratic liberation after years of authoritarian drift, while others denounce a coup disguised as a popular revolution.

This split is directly reflected in Bengali-language media broadcast abroad, where competing narratives clash with an intensity rarely seen for a country of this size, blurring outside observers' ability to distinguish fact from partisan propaganda.

The influence on Western diplomacy

Western governments, mindful of the electoral and economic weight of their respective Bangladeshi communities, must navigate these conflicting pressures when shaping their policy toward Dhaka. The United Kingdom, in particular, has had to manage significant internal tensions between citizens of Bangladeshi origin favoring one camp or the other.

This dynamic complicates the formulation of a unified and coherent Western position on the Bangladeshi transition, with each capital wary of alienating a significant share of its immigrant electorate by taking too firm a stance for either Bangladeshi political camp.

Bangladesh's economy, hostage to political instability

The garment sector under pressure

Bangladesh remains one of the world's largest garment exporters, a sector employing millions of workers, mostly women, and remaining extremely vulnerable to political instability. Major Western brands, dependent on this supply chain, closely monitor every political tremor that could disrupt production.

Yunus's economic team managed to avert the financial collapse feared after Hasina's fall, but foreign investors remain cautious as long as the country's political trajectory is not fully stabilized under the new BNP government.

Trade negotiations with Washington

Bangladesh has also opened trade talks with the United States, covering issues related to cotton and liquefied natural gas, as Dhaka seeks to diversify its economic partnerships away from exclusive dependence on India and China.

These negotiations, still at a preliminary stage, could become an important lever for further anchoring Bangladesh within the Western economic orbit, provided domestic political stability allows long-term commitments to be secured.

The student movement's survivors: between past glory and disillusionment

From street heroism to institutional disappointment

The students who led the 2024 uprising now occupy an ambiguous place in Bangladesh's new political landscape. Some, like Nahid Islam and Asif Mahmud, joined Yunus's cabinet as advisers, while others founded the National Citizen Party in an attempt to turn their revolutionary capital into a lasting political force.

But eighteen months later, a significant portion of this activist generation expresses deep disappointment at the slow pace of promised reforms and at how the traditional parties, led by the BNP, ultimately reaped the political benefits of a movement they had not started.

The NCP, still a marginal but symbolic force

With only 6 seats won in the February 2026 election, the National Citizen Party failed to translate street energy into a meaningful electoral victory, a gap that illustrates the classic difficulty protest movements face in converting into effective party machines.

This disconnect between the student movement's symbolic influence and its actual parliamentary weight has fueled the frustration of a youth that paid in blood for a change from which it currently reaps only a fraction of the political rewards.

Conclusion: a transition that remains to be proven

A country at a crossroads

Eighteen months after Sheikh Hasina's fall, Bangladesh has crossed a major electoral milestone, but the solidity of its new democracy remains to be demonstrated. The legal exclusion of the Awami League, the rise of Jamaat-e-Islami, persistent tensions between factions born of the student movement, and China's growing shadow together paint a far more complex picture than a simple story of a triumphant return to democracy.

The BNP government, buoyed by its two-thirds majority, now bears the responsibility of proving this transition was not merely a transfer of power between two rival political dynasties.

The West must stay attentive

For Western capitals, the stakes go well beyond Bangladesh's domestic politics alone. This is about preserving a strategic partner in a region where competition with China and the growing influence of organized Islamist forces are continually redrawing the balance of power.

Bangladesh deserves rigorous, demanding, and honest attention — neither complacency toward its current leaders, nor indifference to the real risks that still weigh on its future stability.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Who I am and my biases

I sign this analysis as a columnist for mad-m.ca, with a stated editorial line: I believe the West must remain central to the global geopolitical balance and that China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea pose serious threats to that order. This perspective inevitably colors my reading of events in Bangladesh, notably my emphasis on issues related to Chinese influence in the region.

I am neither a South Asia specialist nor a direct witness to the events described here. My work relies exclusively on public journalistic, academic, and institutional sources, cited in full below.

What I do not know and my method

I cannot confirm with certainty how the question of the Awami League's reintegration will evolve, nor predict whether the factional tensions described in this piece will lead to a major political crisis. These elements belong to forward-looking analysis, not established fact.

Every figure, date, and quote in this article comes from a verifiable source, listed in full in the following section. No information has been invented or extrapolated beyond what the sources allow me to state.

Sources

Primary sources

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Bangladesh's Unfinished Revolution" — May 28, 2026

Human Rights Watch, Bangladesh Annual Report 2026 — January 9, 2026

Congressional Research Service, "Recent Political Developments in Bangladesh" — June 5, 2026

Secondary sources

Al Jazeera, "Can Bangladesh's Awami League survive election ban" — January 30, 2026

The Diplomat, "Where Does Bangladesh's Once Dominant Awami League Stand Today?" — May 28, 2026

Wikipedia, "2026 Bangladeshi general election"

ACLED, "Bangladesh heads toward a landmark election amid rising political violence" — February 5, 2026

BTI Transformation Index, Bangladesh Country Report 2026