Just over two years ago, when Sheikh Hasina won an election widely condemned as rigged in her favour, it was hard to imagine her 15-year grip on power being broken so suddenly, or that a rival party that had been virtually written off would make such a resounding comeback.
But in the cycle of Bangladeshi politics, this is one more flip-flop between Hasina’s Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which have alternated holding power for decades.
Except this is the first time that new BNP leader Tarique Rahman is formally leading the party – and the first time he’s contested an election.
His mother Khaleda Zia, who died of an illness late last year, was the party’s head for four decades. She took over after his father, Ziaur Rahman, the BNP founder and a key leader of Bangladesh’s war for independence, was assassinated.
Accused of benefitting from nepotism when his mother was in power, Tarique Rahman has also faced allegations of corruption. Five days before his mother died he returned to Bangladesh after 17 years of self-imposed exile in London.
And while Rahman, 60, has on occasion been the de-facto chair of an emaciated BNP when his mother was jailed and more recently when she was ill, he’s largely seen as an untested leader.
“That he doesn’t have prior experience probably works for him, because people are willing to give change a chance,” says political scientist Navine Murshid. “They want to think that new, good things are actually possible. So there is a lot of hope.”
