In February 2025, the National Citizens Party (NCP) was established by the prominent youth leaders of Bangladesh’s so-called ‘Gen-Z Revolution.’

This student-led uprising had terminated Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year authoritarian tenure during the summer of 2024. The primary objective of the party was to transition young leaders into the parliament.

The 2024 uprising comprised a broad coalition of liberals, leftists, Islamists and nationalists. The Bangladesh Jamaat-i-Islami (BJI) emerged as the most organised faction. It had been a primary target of Hasina’s government. The movement against Hasina’s rule was highly iconoclastic, actively attacking symbols associated with the birth of Bangladesh and the role played by Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujeeb, in this birth. He is someone the BJI detests.

When the young leaders of the 2024 uprising decided to formalise their revolution by establishing a political party, the move was immediately met with internal confusion. The NCP’s ranks comprised a volatile mix of progressives, secularists, conservatives and nationalists. Internal debates were often heated but failed to produce a consolidated consensus. Instead, a flimsy foundational statement was tabled, asserting that the party was neither secular nor Islamist.

This was criticised by political analysts as a product of political ambiguity. This lack of clarity became particularly apparent during the drafting of the party’s primary charter. The leadership struggled to reconcile the aspirations of its secular factions with the increasing influence of its Islamist factions. By refusing to define its stance on the role of religion in the state, the party risked becoming a vessel for any organised group capable of mobilising the street. This led to NCP’s controversial alignment with the BJI for the elections.

From Pakistan in 1977 and Iran in 1979 to Egypt in 2011 and Bangladesh in 2026, when loosely organised reformists align with disciplined Islamist........

© Dawn (Magazines)