Hasina Calls for Election Boycott

The political landscape of Bangladesh, already fractured and scarred by the popular uprising that toppled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024, now faces a critical crisis of legitimacy ahead of the planned national elections. The country’s longest-serving leader, speaking from exile in New Delhi, has issued a stark warning that millions of her supporters will actively boycott the upcoming polls scheduled for early next year, a move that threatens to hollow out the democratic exercise and plunge the nation into renewed instability. The reason for this threatened mass non-participation is unprecedented: the party of Sheikh Hasina, the powerful Awami League (AL), has been barred from the ballot.

In her first extensive media engagement since her dramatic fall from power in August 2024, Hasina, 78, confirmed her party’s decision in emailed responses to Reuters this week. “The ban on the Awami League is not only unjust, it is self-defeating,” she stated, adding, “The next government must have electoral legitimacy. Millions of people support the Awami League, so as things stand, they will not vote. You cannot disenfranchise millions of people if you want a political system that works.” This declaration by the former Prime Minister lays bare the immense challenge facing the interim government, led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, which has pledged to restore order and hold a free and fair election in February 2026. However, an election without the participation of one of the country’s two traditionally dominant political forces, the other being the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which is widely expected to win, raises profound questions about the vote’s credibility and the political system’s resilience.

The crisis stems from a series of extraordinary actions taken by the post-uprising administration. The interim government moved to ban all activities of the Awami League and its affiliated organisations in May 2025, citing national security threats and ongoing war crimes investigations into senior party figures. Subsequently, the Election Commission of Bangladesh (EC) suspended the party’s registration, effectively barring it from contesting the national polls. This unprecedented exclusion is a direct outcome of the bloody student-led protests that began over job quotas but morphed into a nationwide pro-democracy uprising against Hasina’s authoritarian rule. A report by the United Nations (UN) estimates that up to 1,400 people were killed and thousands more injured, mostly by security forces’ gunfire, during the unrest that led to her ousting, marking the deadliest period of violence in Bangladesh since its 1971 war of independence.

Hasina, who is currently living in self-imposed exile in India, is herself facing severe legal jeopardy. Her trial at the domestic International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in Dhaka on charges of crimes against humanity over the brutal crackdown in mid-2024 has recently concluded, with a verdict expected on November 13. The former leader vehemently denied the charges, labelling the proceedings a “politically motivated charade” and arguing that the verdict is a “foregone conclusion” by a “sham court presided over by an unelected government consisting of my political opponents.” Her refusal to apologise for the killings that took place during the agitation further deepens the polarisation. Despite the gravity of the charges against her and her party, the core political reality remains that the Awami League is a deeply entrenched political machine with a massive, loyal base.

The prospect of such a massive boycott has alarmed both local civil society groups and international observers. The most recent report from the rights watchdog Freedom House on Bangladesh’s political environment, even before the Awami League’s current ban, highlighted the severe deficiencies in the country’s electoral integrity, noting that the conduct of past national elections was “marred by violence, intimidation, and allegations of fraud.” While the interim government under Muhammad Yunus has lifted restrictions on other political parties, the sheer act of excluding the AL has created a vacuum of democratic participation. The challenge for the interim government is immense: to restore the legitimacy of the electoral process while simultaneously excluding a major political force due to alleged past crimes and security concerns. The government is attempting to navigate this impossible corner by pursuing accountability for the past regime while preparing for an election designed to usher in a new democratic era. However, as Hasina herself warned, no government can secure genuine political stability by disenfranchising millions of voters. Her refusal to return until a “legitimate government” and “constitutional rule” prevail in Dhaka casts a long shadow over the February polls, as Bangladesh is heading toward an election that will determine a new government, but may fail to deliver a true resolution to its enduring political crisis.