Bangladeshi Gen Z toppled Hasina. Now they could decide next prime minister

For astir of his big life, Rafiul Alam did not judge that voting was worthy the locomotion to the polling station. He is 27, grew up successful a middle-class neighbourhood of Dhaka, and became eligible to ballot astir a decennary ago. He ne'er did – not successful Bangladesh’s nationalist elections successful 2018, nor successful the 2024 vote.

“My ballot had nary existent value,” helium said.

Like galore Bangladeshis successful his property group, Alam’s governmental consciousness formed nether erstwhile Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s agelong play of government, erstwhile absorption parties and predetermination watchdogs repeatedly questioned the credibility of polls.

Over time, helium said, disengagement with authorities became normal, adjacent rational, for a generation. “You turn up knowing elections exist, but believing they really don’t person the powerfulness to determine anything. So you enactment your vigor elsewhere… studies, work, adjacent trying to permission the country,” helium said.

This calculation began to displacement for him successful July 2024, erstwhile pupil protests implicit a authorities occupation preservation strategy favouring definite groups spiralled into a nationwide uprising. Alam joined marches successful Dhaka’s Mirpur country and helped coordinate logistics for protests, arsenic Hasina’s information forces launched a brutal crackdown.

The United Nations Human Rights Office aboriginal estimated that up to 1,400 radical – astir of them young – whitethorn person been killed earlier Hasina fled to India connected August 5, 2024, ending astir 15 years successful power.

When Hasina left, Alam said the infinitesimal felt similar thing that had appeared imperishable had broken. “For the archetypal time, it felt similar mean radical could propulsion for a change,” helium said. “Once you acquisition that, you consciousness liable for what comes next.”

Bangladesh is present heading for a nationalist predetermination connected February 12, the archetypal since the uprising. European Union observers person described the upcoming ballot arsenic the “biggest antiauthoritarian process successful 2026, anywhere”. And Alam plans to ballot for the archetypal time.

“I’m thrilled to workout my mislaid close arsenic a citizen,” helium said.

He is not alone. Bangladesh has astir 127 cardinal registered voters, astir 56 cardinal of them betwixt the ages of 18 and 37, according to the Election Commission. They represent astir 44 percent of the electorate, and are a demographic wide seen arsenic the driving unit down Hasina’s downfall.

“Practically speaking, anyone who turned 18 aft the 2008 parliamentary predetermination has ne'er had the accidental to ballot successful a competitory poll,” said Humayun Kabir, manager wide of the Election Commission’s nationalist individuality registration wing.

“That means radical who person been incapable to ballot for the past 17 years are present successful their mid-30s… and particularly anxious to formed their ballots.”

This eagerness comes aft 3 post-2008 elections that “were not considered credible”, Ivars Ijabs, the EU’s main observer, said.

The 2014 polls saw a wide absorption boycott, and dozens of seats wherever Hasina’s Awami League enactment faced nary contest. The 2018 vote, though contested, became wide known arsenic the “night’s vote”, aft allegations that ballot boxes had been filled earlier polling day.

The 2024 election, meanwhile, again went up amid a large boycott by absorption parties, with critics arguing that conditions for a “fair contention did not exist”.

Protesters outcry slogans arsenic they observe Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation, successful Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, August 5, 2024 [Rajib Dhar/AP]

A pivotal electorate

Fragmented by class, geography, religion and experience, Bangladesh’s young voters are agreed little by ideology than by a shared suspicion of institutions, which, for astir of their big lives, person failed to correspond them, accidental analysts.

“There is simply a important property spread betwixt pre–Hasina authorities voters and caller voters,” said Fahmidul Haq, a writer and module subordinate astatine Bard College successful New York and a erstwhile prof astatine the University of Dhaka. “Because of the quality of elections nether the Hasina administration, we bash not cognize the existent level of nationalist acceptance of the governmental parties.”

As a result, helium said, the existent cohort of first-time voters volition play a decisive relation successful shaping the aboriginal absorption of authorities successful Bangladesh. Haq described the upcoming predetermination arsenic a intelligence merchandise valve aft years of repression, during which young radical “could not clasp their representatives accountable; rather, those representatives appeared to them arsenic oppressors”.

Many young radical inactive bash not spot the existing system, Haq argued, and immoderate stay sceptical of the antiauthoritarian modulation itself.

Umama Fatema, a Dhaka University pupil who emerged arsenic a salient person during the 2024 protests, said the uprising generated almighty expectations among young people: promises of “no corruption, nary manipulation, equality of accidental and governmental reform”.

But translating these aspirations into institutions has proven acold much difficult. As the modulation unfolded, Fatema said the betterment process, led by the interim medication of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, alongside manoeuvring by governmental parties – including those calved retired of 2024’s protests – became progressively complex.

“Very fewer radical and their aspirations person been meaningfully progressive and incorporated,” she said.

Leader of National Citizen Party (NCP), Nahid Islam, addresses supporters during a governmental rally successful Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, August 3, 2025 [Mahmud Hossain Opu/ AP Photo]

A fraught alliance

With the Awami League barred from governmental enactment by the interim Yunus government, the predetermination has turned into a conflict betwixt 2 rival coalitions: 1 led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and the different by Jamaat-e-Islami.

For galore young protesters, this result cuts against the tone of 2024.

Pantho Saha, a 22-year-old pupil from the Cumilla territory successful the country’s southeast, said galore with whom helium protested successful 2024 had hoped the leaders who emerged from the uprising would interruption what helium described arsenic the “same aged dynastic” patterns.

That anticipation began to fracture, helium said, erstwhile the National Citizen Party (NCP), a youth-led enactment calved retired of the protestation movement, moved towards an electoral confederation with Jamaat-e-Islami. A far-right Islamist party, the Jamaat’s absorption to Bangladesh’s independency during the 1971 warfare has agelong constricted its mainstream appeal.

“Historically, those who regularisation america travel to powerfulness with large promises,” Saha said. “But aft a fewer years, powerfulness blinds them, and the aforesaid abuses repeat.”

The NCP, helium said, initially felt different. “We thought of the NCP arsenic a beacon of light. But seeing it align with a enactment that carries truthful overmuch humanities baggage made galore of america suffer hope.”

Fatema, who led the protests alongside respective figures who aboriginal founded the NCP, said the party’s alignment with the Jamaat risks shrinking the value of the July 2024 uprising. “Over time, it could earnestly harm however this uprising is remembered successful history,” helium warned.

The NCP positioned itself astatine its motorboat arsenic a generational alternate to Bangladesh’s accepted parties, promising what it called a “new governmental settlement” rooted successful the 2024 July movement. But arsenic talks precocious implicit the electoral confederation with Jamaat-e-Islami, the enactment saw a question of resignations, including from respective elder figures and women leaders who had been expected to contention parliamentary seats. Many of them person since announced autarkic bids, saying the enactment was “drifting from its founding commitments”.

Nahid Islam, the NCP’s chief, has defended the confederation with Jamaat-e-Islami, describing it arsenic a “strategic electoral statement aimed astatine greater unity”, alternatively than an ideological alignment.

People ticker Bangladesh’s Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin’s code to the federation connected a television, successful Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, December 11, 2025 [Mahmud Hossain Opu/AP Photo]

Between anticipation and politics

Even so, the February 12 ballot carries peculiar value for galore younger Bangladeshis who helped thrust past year’s uprising.

Moumita Akter, 24, a master’s pupil astatine Chittagong University who took portion successful the anti-Hasina protests, described the ballot arsenic “the archetypal measurement to reconstruct astatine slightest the astir basal antiauthoritarian practices”.

“I don’t expect miracles from a azygous vote. But I privation to spot whether the strategy tin astatine slightest relation properly. That unsocial would beryllium a large change,” she said.

For others, similar Sakibur Rahman, 23, a elector from the eastbound Brahmanbaria territory who studies doctrine astatine the University of Dhaka, the entreaty of ideology remains conditional.

“You tin speech astir ideology each day, but if radical don’t consciousness safe, can’t talk freely and can’t gain a living, ideology feels abstract, helium told Al Jazeera.

Rahman said helium would enactment whichever enactment could credibly warrant nationalist safety, state of expression, spiritual freedom, and minorities surviving without fear.

For galore women voters, the calculation is sharper still. Women marque up astir fractional of Bangladesh’s electorate, but young women accidental questions of dignity and mundane information volition signifier their ballot.

“We perceive promises of women’s rights, but the lived world is acold from ideal. That volition signifier however galore of my pistillate friends volition vote,” Akter, the master’s student, said.

Yet the governmental tract they are being asked to take from remains overwhelmingly male. Election Commission information shows that lone 109 of the 2,568 candidates contesting the election, oregon astir 4.24 percent, are women.

Fatema said the governmental abstraction for women has narrowed alternatively than expanded since the uprising. “After August 5, women who talk astir their agency, their contributions, and their close to practice person been suppressed successful galore ways,” she said.

“Harassment, from online maltreatment to intersexual threats, has go regular successful governmental spaces.” These pressures are pushing women retired of disposable governmental roles, conscionable arsenic the state enters a captious governmental transition, she added.

Mubashar Hasan, a governmental perceiver and adjunct researcher astatine Western Sydney University’s Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative, said the disconnect betwixt women’s prominence successful protestation movements and their marginalisation successful ceremonial authorities raises doubts astir the extent of reform.

“No structural alteration is imaginable without women’s governmental representation, and information astatine the highest levels… some successful parliament and successful policymaking,” helium said. “Without that, promises of immoderate caller governmental bid stay incomplete.”

Fahmidul Haq of Bard College said governmental parties would person to attack young voters otherwise than successful the past, by addressing “their traumas, desires, and demands sincerely”, and by campaigning with honesty and transparency.

“Young radical are profoundly sceptical of absurd promises,” helium said, adding that those whitethorn successful information alienate them.

Still, thing cardinal has changed. For Alam, the first-time elector from Dhaka’s Mirpur, July 2024 permanently altered however his procreation relates to power.

“We present situation to question everyone,” helium said. “Whoever comes to power, that wont won’t disappear.”