Bangladesh to hold national elections in April 2026, interim leader Yunus says

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DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus on Friday said that the country will hold national elections in the first half of April 2026.

In a televised address to the nation on Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate said that the Election Commission would roll out a detailed roadmap for the election in due course.

Yunus took over three days after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted in a student-led mass uprising in August 2024, ending her 15-year rule. Hasina has been in exile in India since. The interim government banned Hasina’s Awami League party, which is one of the country’s two largest political parties. Hasina faces trial for hundreds of deaths related to the uprising in July and August last year.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, or BNP, headed by Hasina’s archrival and former prime minister Khaleda Zia, had been demanding the elections be held in December. The BNP is the main political party and is hoping to form the next government in the absence of Hasina's party.

Salahuddin Ahmed, a spokesman for BNP, criticized Yunus for failing to “to meet the expectation of the nation” about the polls schedule.

He told Channel 24 television that April is not ideal for an election because the annual month of fasting that starts in mid-February makes campaigning challenging. He said it would also be difficult for a new government to formulate the year’s budget, usually announced in June.

The Jamaat-e-Islami party, the country's largest Islamist party, may also be able to take part in the elections after the country's Supreme Court on June 1 cleared the path for the party to regain its registration as a political party.

Hasina's party had fiercely criticized it for its opposition to Bangladesh gaining independence from Pakistan in 1971. Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was the country's independence leader.

Yunus had earlier said that the election would be held between December and next June. The relationship between Yunus and the BNP has been frosty in recent months over a disagreement about the election schedule. Zia's party accused Yunus of tactics to delay a vote.

In February, a new party was formed by student leaders who led the anti-Hasina uprising. Yunus' critics say the party had backing from him, and Hasina's party calls the new National Citizen Party a “king's party."