Voters in Bangladesh head to the polls on Thursday for the country’s first parliamentary elections since the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024, when a brutal crackdown on mass student-led protests left an estimated 1,400 people dead.
The campaign ended Tuesday morning.
Here’s how voting works in Bangladesh:
What time does voting start in Bangladesh?
Voting will open on February 12th at 7:30am (01:30 GMT) and close at 4:30pm (10:30 GMT).
According to the Election Commission of Bangladesh (ECB), voting will be held at 42,761 polling stations in 64 districts across 300 parliamentary constituencies.
How is voting done in Bangladesh?
As of October 31, 2025, there were 127,711,793 registered voters aged 18 and older, including those registered to vote by mail at home and abroad. This is the first time that postal voting has been facilitated, benefiting around 15 million overseas workers whose remittances are a key part of Bangladesh’s economy.
Bangladesh has a “unicameral” legislature, i.e. a single law-making legislative chamber, the Jatiyo Shansad or House of Peoples, with 350 electoral districts. Each electoral district has single-seat districts.
Voting using the FPTP (First-Past the Post) electoral system is used to elect the 300 members. The remaining 50 seats are reserved for women and will be allocated proportionately to political parties after the election results. So, for example, if a party wins 60 seats, 10 seats will be earmarked for female politicians.
Bangladesh has introduced a plurality voting system in which voters choose one from a list of candidates and the candidate who receives the most votes after vote counting wins the seat.
This means that if a party wins a large number of seats by a narrow margin, this will be reflected in the imbalance between the overall vote share and the overall seats won.
Theoretically, one party could win 51 percent of the vote in all seats and another party could win 49 percent of all seats. However, the largest party will win 100% of the seats.
A party that wins 151 seats forms a government without having to form a coalition with other parties, regardless of the performance of other parties. The party with the second-highest number of seats forms the official opposition party.
What’s the problem?
This will be the first election since January 2024, when Hasina returned for a fifth term. The vote, boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) amid a crackdown on opposition forces, was widely described as neither free nor fair by international observers and rights groups.
In July 2024, students in Bangladesh began protests against the traditional employment quota system, which reserves a significant proportion of valuable government jobs for descendants of 1971 Bangladeshi freedom fighters, who are now widely considered to be part of the political elite.
As protests intensified, Hasina ordered a brutal crackdown. According to the country’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), nearly 1,400 people were killed and more than 20,000 injured.
Hasina was eventually deported and fled to India, where she remains in exile. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was appointed interim leader in August 2024.
Last year, Al Jazeera’s investigative unit obtained recorded evidence showing that a former Bangladeshi leader had ordered police to use “deadly weapons” against protesters.
In November, she was convicted in absentia of crimes against humanity by the Dhaka ICT and sentenced to death. India has so far not agreed to send her back to Bangladesh to stand trial.
After Hasina defected, her party, the Awami League, was also banned from all political activities.
In addition to voting on parliamentary seats, Bangladesh is scheduled to hold a referendum on its 2025 National Charter in July. The national charter was drafted by the interim government in response to student protests and outlines a roadmap for constitutional reform, legal reform, and the enactment of new laws.
Experts say this election will be a litmus test for change in the country.
“Regardless of the outcome, this election will have a significant impact on Bangladesh’s political trajectory,” Khandakar Tahamid Rejwan, a lecturer in global studies and governance at Bangladesh Independent University, told Al Jazeera.
“The result of the referendum will be an important indicator of whether the political spirit of July remains resilient or is slowly fading away.”
Rejwan added that whoever wins the election will also have to address the “Awami League issue”, referring to Hasina’s party, which has been shut out of politics.
“Under these circumstances, deciding on the future is [Awami League]“The central question for the next government will be how long a significant portion of the party’s electorate can remain politically excluded, and under what conditions the party can be rebuilt and returned to democracy.”
Who are the major parties and candidates?
The largest groups competing for parliamentary seats are the two main coalition governments.
bangladesh national party
The centre-right BNP leads a 10-party coalition government.
It is led by Tariq Rahman, son of the late former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. In December, Rahman, 60, returned to Bangladesh after nearly 17 years in exile in London. He fled the country in 2008 after determining that his persecution was politically motivated.
BNP was founded in 1978 by Rahman’s father, Ziaur Rahman, who was a prominent military officer during the 1971 war of independence against Pakistan.
The party says it was founded on the principles of Bangladeshi nationalism. According to the BNP’s website, it is “an ideology that recognizes the rights of Bangladeshis from all walks of life, regardless of ethnicity, gender or race.”
The BNP has traditionally traded ruling and opposition positions with the Awami League since independence.
After Ziaur Rahman’s assassination in 1981, his wife Khaleda Zia led the BNP and served as prime minister twice, from 1991 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2006.
During this time, the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami (JIB) was a key ally of the BNP against the Awami League.
When Hasina returned to power in 2009, the BNP came under intense pressure. Khaleda was convicted on corruption charges in 2018 and placed under house arrest, but was acquitted and released in 2024 after Hasina’s ouster.
Since Hasina’s resignation, the BNP has re-emerged as a leading political force.
Jamaat-e-Islam
JIB, commonly known as Jamaat, spearheads an 11-party coalition that includes the National Civic Party (NCP), a group formed by students who led the 2024 protests against Hasina. The party is led by 67-year-old Shafiqur Rahman.
Jamaat was founded by Abul Ala Mawdudi in 1941, when India was still under British colonial rule.
In 1971, the Jamaat opposed Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan and was banned after liberation. However, the BNP government lifted the ban in 1979.
Jamaat rapidly grew into a significant political force over the next two decades, supporting BNP-led coalition governments in 1991 and 2001.
During Hasina’s power from 2009 to 2024, five JIB leaders were executed, others were jailed for war crimes in 1971, and the party was banned from elections in 2013.
In June 2025, the Supreme Court reinstated the registration and allowed it to be challenged again. Jamaat is no longer affiliated with the BNP and will instead face it as its main rival in the next elections.
In a bid to win support from non-Muslim voters, the Jamaat is fielding a Hindu candidate for the first time in its history, Krishna Nandi from Khulna.
JIB’s ally, NCP, was formed in February 2025 by students who led mass protests in July 2024. It is led by 27-year-old Nahid Islam.
Independent University’s Rejwan said the elections will test how strong the Jamaat really is and will determine Bangladesh’s course on the world stage.
“A BNP victory is likely to signal a move towards detente with India amid existing diplomatic tensions, while also involving more balanced and diverse engagement with external partners that avoids strict alignment and geopolitical dichotomies,” Rejwan said.
“In contrast, a JIB-led government could pursue a markedly different approach. It could seek to counter India’s concerns by fostering closer ties with Pakistan, Turkiye, and even China or the United States or both.”
non-aligned parties
The Islamic Andolan Bangladesh party, which broke away from the JIB alliance, and the Jatiya Party, a longtime ally of Hasina’s Awami League, are contesting elections independently.
What do the polls suggest so far?
According to a survey released in December 2025 by the US-based International Republican Association, the BNP’s approval rating is 33%.
In the survey, Jamaat followed closely behind BNP with 29%.
When will I know the results?
In previous elections, unofficial results typically began to be known early the next morning.
But ECB officials told local media that counting could take longer this time, as it includes both white parliamentary ballots and pink ballots from July’s national charter referendum.
This time, there are many political parties and candidates.
Why is this election so important?
“After nearly 17 years, voters are looking forward to the opportunity to participate in a truly competitive and meaningful electoral process where their individual votes truly matter,” Rejwan said.
The fairness of every election in Bangladesh has been questioned by opposition parties since Hasina came to power in 2009.
Additionally, this election is important because “young voters make up a significant portion of the electorate, many of whom are voting for the first time.”
“This generation was also at the forefront of the popular movement that challenged and ultimately overthrew Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian rule,” he said.
He said that the rapid rise of Islamist parties in both domestic politics and the public sphere, and the absence of the Awami League, one of Bangladesh’s largest and most influential political parties, from the election campaign was also very important.
“This change in political composition has transformed traditional alliances into arenas of competition. Former allies such as the BNP and JIB now find themselves rivals, even though they previously worked together to oppose the Hasina government.”
“The long-standing people’s demand for free and fair elections, the unprecedented potential for constitutional and structural change in the country, the decisive presence of a large Gen Z electorate, and the growing popularity of Islamist parties like JIB make this election one of the most consequential in Bangladesh’s political history,” Rejwan concluded.
