Bangladesh at a Crossroads: From the Hasina Era to the Next Transition—and a Governing Test for Tarique Rahma
– Dr. Fakhrul Iam babu
Bangladesh stands at a consequential juncture, not because any single election has definitively settled the country’s political contest, but because a long-running struggle over democratic competition, institutional credibility, and economic stewardship is nearing a point of inflection. The next transition—whenever and however it comes—will shape the republic’s political norms, its investment climate, and its social cohesion for years. Much of today’s tension is best read as the aftershock of the past decade and a half: a period in which the state expanded its developmental ambitions and administrative reach, while a parallel debate intensified over pluralism, civil liberties, and the rules governing political succession.
Sheikh Hasina’s extended tenure at the head of the Awami League was closely associated with visible economic and infrastructural change. Bangladesh consolidated its position as a global garments powerhouse, pursued large-scale transport and energy projects, and improved a range of social indicators that had long made it a development outlier in South Asia. To supporters, the era represented continuity and delivery: a government that widened connectivity, sustained growth, and projected competence amid regional volatility. Yet the same years also generated persistent criticism—voiced by opposition parties, domestic commentators, and international rights organizations—around shrinking political space, uneven application of law, and an electoral environment seen by many as increasingly favorable to incumbency.
Those arguments sharpened through successive election cycles, as distrust became structural rather than episodic. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) struggled to sustain organization and momentum under the weight of arrests, court cases, internal strain, and the prolonged overseas absence of senior figures, including Tarique Rahman. A central fault line remained the BNP’s demand for a neutral mechanism to oversee national polls following the abolition of the caretaker system in 2011—an issue that repeatedly turned electoral administration into a proxy battle over the legitimacy of the state itself. At the same time, many observers described a more constrained operating climate for civil society and the media, with digital regulation and security provisions frequently cited as instruments that could deter dissent, even when defended by the government as necessary for public order.
The January 2024 general election—held amid an opposition boycott—deepened the legitimacy debate rather than settling it. The Awami League secured another term, but the absence of a full-spectrum contest reinforced an enduring dilemma: Bangladesh’s economic ambitions require predictability, investor confidence, and social trust, yet the political system has struggled to generate broad-based consent on how power should change hands. In such conditions, politics can migrate from parliament to the street, from negotiation to confrontation, and from institutional bargaining to zero-sum narratives in which compromise is framed as defeat.
Against this backdrop, “reset” scenarios are often discussed in political conversation—sometimes featuring interim arrangements, constitutional packages, or sudden changes in party participation. I cannot verify claims that Bangladesh has already undergone such a rupture in 2024–2026 (including allegations of bans, exiles, or a specific election-and-referendum outcome). What can be stated with confidence is that the underlying ingredients that make abrupt shifts imaginable—polarization, doubts about electoral neutrality, and recurring cycles of protest and crackdown—have been present for years, and they continue to shape how Bangladeshis and international partners assess the country’s trajectory.
Within this uncertain landscape, BNP succession and strategy remain central to any credible picture of what comes next. Khaleda Zia’s stature as a former prime minister and party anchor has long defined the BNP’s identity, while Tarique Rahman’s position as acting chairman—paired with his extended residence abroad—has complicated the party’s ability to project day-to-day leadership inside Bangladesh. Even so, any future BNP return to power would not be secured by symbolism alone; it would require a governing offer that reassures the middle ground, reduces the perceived costs of political participation, and persuades voters that alternation in power can occur without destabilization.
That is where a forward-looking agenda for Tarique Rahman—if he were to lead a government—becomes less a matter of partisan promise and more a test of statecraft. The first imperative would be legitimacy through rules: strengthening the independence and appointment processes of core institutions such as the Election Commission, judiciary, and anti-corruption bodies; committing to transparent electoral procedures; and establishing clear, public limits on the political use of policing and prosecution. The second would be an economy-and-jobs program that signals seriousness to citizens and investors alike: credible inflation management, energy pricing and procurement transparency, banking discipline, contract enforcement, and a time-bound investment facilitation drive that improves customs, logistics, and regulatory predictability. A third imperative would be lowering the national temperature by rebuilding pluralism: narrowing overly broad speech and security provisions, protecting peaceful civic activity, and making parliamentary oversight real through empowered committees and routine scrutiny. Finally, any sustainable governing plan would require a predictable foreign policy posture—particularly with India and China—insulated as far as possible from domestic political signaling, while treating the Rohingya crisis as a standing national strategy rather than a periodic headline.
Bangladesh’s wider political field, meanwhile, will continue to evolve in ways that complicate two-party assumptions. Islamist parties and networks retain organizational depth even when their formal electoral pathways face legal and regulatory constraints. Newer civic and youth-driven platforms periodically surface, often propelled by frustration with binary competition and by demands that focus less on personalities and more on governance—prices, jobs, corruption control, and fair access to public services. Whether these forces can translate visibility into durable electoral machinery remains uncertain, but their emergence underscores an electorate that is increasingly impatient with politics that cannot deliver accountability alongside stability.
Over all of this hangs an economic reality that is both a national strength and a vulnerability. The garments sector, remittances, and a growing domestic market provide resilience, but external shocks, energy costs, currency pressures, and the need for export diversification impose hard constraints on any government’s room to maneuver. The next phase of development—moving up value chains, improving bank governance, strengthening revenue collection, and expanding human capital—will be difficult in a climate of political mistrust, yet postponing these reforms would risk slower growth and sharper inequality. In Bangladesh now, the political settlement and the economic strategy are inseparable: each conditions the success of the other.
Bangladesh is, in that sense, at a crossroads—but the decisive question is not only who governs next. It is whether the country can rebuild credible, rules-based political competition without sacrificing order, and whether it can pursue ambitious economic goals while widening, rather than narrowing, the national consensus. A durable “new chapter” would require more than the triumph of one camp over another. It would require institutions trusted to referee conflict, a civic space capable of absorbing dissent without destabilization, and leaders—whoever they are—willing to treat alternation in power not as an existential threat, but as the normal grammar of constitutional life.
Writer :
Dr. Fakhrul Islam Babu