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The National Citizen Party (NCP) in Bangladesh has acquired some strange definition in its short life of 20 months. It is, according to its more seasoned critics, a party of children. Its leaders are too young and too inexperienced. They have apparently mistaken leading a revolution for acquiring the right to govern a country. 

The older political class, having accumulated decades of experience in running Bangladesh into one crisis after another, finds this presumption especially ‘offensive’.

The criticism is not confined to age. There are those who regard the NCP’s brief proximity to state power during the time of the interim administration after Sheikh Hasina’s ouster from power as an entitlement it never earned. Others see its young leaders as merely another collection of ambitious politicians, some already attracting allegations of corruption and favouritism. 

Such accusations probably deserve scrutiny, but the speed with which political disappointment has hardened into a verdict on an entire generation is, let’s say, quite remarkable.

The ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has ‘little incentive’ to take the NCP seriously in public. Neither does the ousted Awami League. Both have found a convenient description for it – Jamaat-e-Islami’s second fiddle. Its electoral alliance with the Islamist party makes the accusation easy enough to sustain.

Yet there is a problem with this consensus. Increasingly, the NCP is becoming a viable political choice for Bangladeshis who want neither the familiar BNP-Awami League contest nor a party defined primarily by religion or with a massive historical baggage.

That does not mean it is about to take power. Six parliamentary seats hardly constitute an approaching victory. But parties do not become serious contenders only when their parliamentary position becomes impressive. They become serious when voters begin imagining them in government in future, however distant may it be.

And the NCP has given a growing section of Bangladeshis something that has been conspicuously absent from their politics – a third possibility.

The political space nobody quite noticed

To understand the NCP’s opportunity, consider what happened to Bangladesh’s political centre after Sheikh Hasina’s removal in August 2024.

The BNP, as a political party, occupied the broad centre-right, combining nationalism, religious conservatism and a pragmatic approach to economic policy for decades. The Awami League claimed much of the centre-left, although its dictatorial Hasina ruling of 15 years made ideological labels rather less useful than they once were.

With the Awami League effectively excluded from legitimate electoral competition, a large political constituency became available.

The BNP, now led in government by Tarique Rahman, had an obvious calculation to make. Remaining firmly on the right would leave former Awami League voters with little reason to reconsider their loyalties. Moving towards the centre could attract moderate voters and........

© The Wire