BNP Wins Bangladesh Election, Son of Former Leaders to be PM

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) claimed a thumping win on Friday in the first election held since a deadly 2024 uprising, with leader Tarique Rahman poised to become prime minister.

But final official results are yet to come, and its main rival Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist party leading a wider coalition, said it had “serious questions about the integrity of the results process”.

The US embassy swiftly congratulated Rahman and the BNP for a “historic victory”, while neighbouring India praised his “decisive win” despite rocky recent relations with Bangladesh. Pakistan’s prime minister hailed the Bangladeshi people’s “successful conduct of elections”.

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At 9:30am, broadcasters projected that the BNP had pushed well past the 150-seat threshold to secure a clear majority in parliament, predicting they would win more than two-thirds of seats.

‘Mounting challenges’

The Jamuna television channel projected that the BNP had secured 212 seats. It said Jamaat had won 74, a huge leap from its past results but far short of the outright win it had campaigned for. Somoy TV broadcast similar figures.

Rahman had told AFP two days before polling he was “confident” that his party – crushed during the 15-year autocratic rule of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina – would regain power in the South Asian nation of 170 million people.

Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman, 67, had mounted a disciplined grassroots campaign on a platform of justice and ending corruption.

His party said it was “not satisfied with the process surrounding the election results”, claiming it had logged “repeated inconsistencies and fabrications in unofficial result announcements”. It did not immediately give specific evidence.

The Election Commission has suggested it will not release final results until later on Friday, for a total of the 299 constituencies of 300 in which voting took place.

A further 50 seats in parliament reserved for women will be named from party lists.

Senior BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, in a party statement, claimed a resounding win without giving figures, calling for followers to give thanks in prayer on Friday rather than celebrate on the streets.

“There will be no victory rally despite the BNP’s sweeping victory,” the statement said. “We will hold special prayers at mosques after Jumma (Friday) prayers across the country.”

Peaceful polls

Party workers spent the whole night in front of the BNP offices.

“We will join the nation-building effort led by Tarique Rahman,” Md Fazlur Rahman, 45, told AFP. “Over the last 17 years, we have suffered a lot.”

Heavy deployments of security forces are posted countrywide, and UN experts warned ahead of the voting of “growing intolerance, threats and attacks”, and a “tsunami of disinformation”.

Political clashes killed five people and injured more than 600 during campaigning, police records show.

But polling day was largely peaceful, according to the Election Commission, which reported only “a few minor disruptions”.

Tarique Rahman speaks after voting in Dhaka, Feb 12, 2026. (SM Rahman, NurPhoto via Afp).

Political heir Tarique to be PM

Long overshadowed by his parents and heir to one of Bangladesh’s most powerful political dynasties, Tarique Rahman has finally stepped into the spotlight.

At 60, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader is preparing to take charge of the South Asian nation of 170 million, driven by what he calls an ambition to “do better”.

His rise marks a remarkable turnaround for a man who only returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years in exile in Britain, far from Dhaka’s political storms.

Widely known as Tarique Zia, he carries a political name that has shaped every stage of his life.

He was 15 when his father, president Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated in 1981. And his mother, Khaleda Zia – a three-time prime minister and a towering figure in Bangladeshi politics for decades – died aged 80 just days after his return home.

‘My country’

Speaking two days before the vote, Rahman vowed to build on their legacy.

“They are them, I am me,” he said from his office, beneath gold-framed portraits of his late parents. “I will try to do better than them.”

He described the “mixed feelings” that overwhelmed him when he arrived home in December – the joy of returning, swiftly eclipsed by grief at his mother’s death.

“This is my country, I was born here, I was raised here – so naturally, that was a very happy feeling,” he said.

Instead of celebrating, however, he had to bid farewell to his ailing mother, who had long been in intensive care.

“When you come home after so long, any son wants to hug his mother,” he said. “I didn’t have that chance.”

Within days of landing in Dhaka, he assumed leadership of the BNP and its election campaign.

The still grieving heir took to the stage, microphone in hand, rallying vast crowds.

‘Unnerves many’

Born when the country was still East Pakistan, he was briefly detained as a child during the 1971 independence war. His party hails him as “one of the youngest prisoners of war”.

His father, Ziaur Rahman, an army commander, gained influence months after a 1975 coup when founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – Sheikh Hasina’s father – was murdered.

It entrenched a rivalry between the two families that would define the country’s politics for decades. Ziaur Rahman himself was killed in 1981.

Rahman grew up in his mother’s political orbit as she went on to become the country’s first female prime minister, alternating power with Hasina in a long and bitter duel.

“In her seats, I used to go and I used to campaign,” Rahman said. “So this is how slowly and gradually I started getting involved in the politics.”

But his career has also been shadowed by allegations of corruption and abuse of power.

A 2006 US embassy cable said he “inspires few but unnerves many”.

Other cables labelled him a “symbol of kleptocratic government and violent politics” and accused him of being “phenomenally corrupt”.

Arrested on corruption charges in 2007, Rahman says he was tortured in custody.

He fled to London the following year, where he faced multiple cases in absentia. He denied all charges and dismissed them as politically motivated.

But he also told AFP he offered an apology. “If there are any mistakes which were unwanted, we are sorry for that,” he said.

After Hasina’s fall, Rahman was acquitted of the most serious charge against him – a life sentence handed down in absentia for a 2004 grenade attack on a Hasina rally – which he’d always denied.

Married to a cardiologist and father to a daughter, a lawyer, he led a quiet life in Britain.

That changed with his dramatic return and hero’s welcome in December.

He admits the task ahead is “immense”, rebuilding a country he says was “destroyed” by the former regime.

‘Ended the nightmare’

Interim leader Muhammad Yunus, who will step down once the new government takes power, has urged all sides to stay calm.

“We may have differences of opinion, but we must remain united in the greater national interest,” he said.

The 85-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner has led Bangladesh since Hasina’s rule ended with her ouster in August 2024. His administration barred her Awami League party from contesting the polls.

Yunus, after casting his vote, said the country had “ended the nightmare and begun a new dream”.

Hasina, 78, sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity, issued a statement from in hiding in India, where she decried an “illegal and unconstitutional election”.

Yunus has championed a sweeping democratic reform charter to overhaul what he called a “completely broken” system of government and to prevent a return to one-party rule.

Voters also took part in a referendum on the proposals for prime ministerial term limits, a new upper house of parliament, stronger presidential powers and greater judicial independence.

Television projections suggested the electorate had backed the charter.