The caretaker government of Bangladesh has announced that it will hold general elections in late 2025 or early 2026 as interim leader Muhammad Yunus addressed the nation on December 16. Yunus, meanwhile, is under increasing pressure to name a “chief advisor” in the wake of the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in an August student-led uprising that has thrown the South Asian country’s political scene into turmoil.
In a televised address marking Victory Day, commemorating the defeat of Pakistan in the 1971 war that led to Bangladesh’s independence, Yunus stressed the need for political consensus in organizing the elections.
He said, “If the political consensus dictates that we have to, and I repeat, ‘have to,’ finish the election with minimal reforms and an accurate voter list, it could be possible to hold elections by the end of 2025.” He then said election dates could be set for late 2025 or first half of 2026.
To facilitate these much-needed reforms, Yunus has started several commissions to look into the electoral process. He iterated that the reforms must be done prior to finalizing the arrangements of the election. “If the political parties agree to hold the election on an earlier date with minimum reforms, such as having a flawless voter list, the election could be held by the end of November,” he said.
But Yunus warned that such a long list of electoral reforms could be included in the manifesto might cause several months delay to the elections. “The task is more challenging this time because voters did not participate in the last three elections, and the voter list has not been verified for over 15 years,” he added, The Daily Star reports.
Key among these reforms is the need for a fresh voter list, which Yunus termed “complex” as the list needs to be purged of false names. He envisioned “100 percent voter turnout” in the coming elections and vowed that if that were achieved, no government would ever again dare to take away people’s voting rights.
All this comes in the backdrop of the ouster of Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina, who had fled by helicopter to India after protesters broke into the prime minister’s palace, demanding the scrapping of quotas in civil service jobs. The last general elections were held in January and have come out with Hasina as a winner amid charges of electoral unfairness.
