In the landmark election of 12 February 2026, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) returned to power with a commanding two-thirds majority, securing 212 seats and ending two decades in the political wilderness. Rising from the aftershocks of a student-led uprising that dismantled a political dynasty in 2024, Tarique Rahman now stands as Prime Minister-designate, leading a nation attempting to rewrite its social contract. The scale of the victory suggests renewal. Yet renewal, in this case, comes shadowed by an uncomfortable absence.

Beneath the triumph lies a disquieting question: can a democracy be considered legitimate when its oldest political force, the Awami League (AL), was legally barred from contesting? The European Union described the poll as administratively credible, but legitimacy rests on more than procedural efficiency.

The total exclusion of the AL through judicial and administrative coercion has created a representation vacuum at the heart of the new order. Democracies are strengthened not merely by decisive mandates but by the presence of credible alternatives. If the Awami League remains permanently outlawed, Bangladesh risks institutionalising a politics of revenge in which the “out-group” waits patiently for the next rupture to reclaim its place.

Stability will ultimately depend not on erasure, but on reintegration—on whether the state can absorb the rank-and-file of its vanquished rival back into competitive politics.

At the centre of this transition stands Rahman himself, a figure whose resurrection is as dramatic as it is contested. His campaign was a disciplined exercise in reinvention, but he remains trailed by a long and controversial legacy. Once labelled a symbol of systemic graft—both by domestic courts in earlier eras and in blunt 2008 diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks—Rahman now faces the more difficult challenge of persuading sceptics that his return marks transformation rather than restoration.

His 2025 legal acquittals cleared the procedural path home, yet shedding the reputation of patronage politics will require more than judicial validation. For a politician once associated with the shadowy power centre of “Hawa Bhaban,” every policy choice will be read as evidence either of institutional reform or of regression to old networks of influence. His premiership will test whether Bangladesh’s politics can evolve beyond personality-driven patronage into rule-bound governance.

The uprising of 2024 was not an anomaly; it was a reminder that sovereignty in contemporary Bangladesh is increasingly exercised from the streets as much as from the ballot box

The uprising of 2024 was not an anomaly; it was a reminder that sovereignty in contemporary Bangladesh is increasingly exercised from the streets as much as from the ballot box

Equally consequential is the recalibrated posture of the Bangladesh Armed Forces. Since the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, the military has remained deeply entangled in the country’s political trajectory, at times as arbiter, at times as direct ruler. Today, it appears to be attempting a pivot—from overt kingmaker to institutional guarantor.

The proposed National Security Council (NSC) is framed as a civilian-led forum designed to formalise consultation and prevent the abrupt disruptions that have punctuated Bangladesh’s past. Supporters argue that structured engagement reduces the likelihood of “default gun-power” interventions.

Sceptics counter that formalising such a role risks entrenching guardianship under constitutional cover. The measure of democratic maturity lies in the unambiguous subordination of the military to elected authority. By granting the armed forces a formal seat at the strategic table, the 2026 settlement may stabilise the present while complicating the long-term pursuit of civilian supremacy.

Perhaps the most profound shift is ideological. The void left by the Awami League has been filled by Jamaat-e-Islami, now the principal opposition with a record 68 seats. Parliament has thus become the arena for a deeper struggle over the republic’s identity. The July Charter introduces democratic restraints such as term limits, yet it also reflects mounting pressure from religious constituencies. -

The removal of “Secularism” from the Constitution’s fundamental principles—replaced by formulations like “Religious Freedom and Harmony”—has triggered anxieties about a gradual theocratic drift. Critics fear that a disciplined religious opposition will use its parliamentary leverage to reshape the foundational commitments of the 1971 state.

Supporters argue that the language better reflects social realities. What is clear is that Bangladesh’s debate is no longer confined to governance alone; it now extends to the philosophical core of the republic.

Bangladesh stands, therefore, in a moment of suspended consolidation. The machinery of reform is in motion, but the disappearance of one dominant pole has not produced consensus; it has merely redrawn the lines of polarisation. Rahman inherits a battered economy and a politically awakened generation that has already demonstrated its capacity to overturn entrenched power.

The uprising of 2024 was not an anomaly; it was a reminder that sovereignty in contemporary Bangladesh is increasingly exercised from the streets as much as from the ballot box.

If the new government can deliver accountability, restrain military ambition, and safeguard minority rights against sectarian encroachment, it may yet close a half-century cycle of rivalry and retaliation. If it falters, the same civic energy that cleared its path to office may again surge into the public square. In post-revolution Bangladesh, power is no longer secured solely by electoral arithmetic. It must be continuously negotiated with a vigilant citizenry that has rediscovered its own force.

© The Friday Times