Bangladesh will hold historic elections in 2026 but millions of its citizens will not be able to vote

Australia Broadcast Center

4 days ago

Canberra man Mizan Rahman will fly more than 9,000 kilometres to vote when Bangladesh holds its general election next year.
"I've never had the chance to vote in Bangladesh, where national elections are celebrated like a grand festival," he told the ABC.
Asked why he would spend thousands of dollars to travel for the purpose of casting a single ballot, the Bangladeshi Australian dual national was unequivocal.
"Under Sheikh Hasina's regime, elections were essentially nonexistent, and the democratic system was dismantled," he said.
"I longed for the end of that era, and I've decided that the best way to celebrate its fall is by standing alongside those who fought for our right to vote and casting my ballot in this historic election.
Frustration over inflation, a lack of high-quality jobs and widespread corruption under prime minister Sheikh Hasina led to student protests deemed the "world's first gen Z revolution".
She fled into exile in India — paving the way for new elections in April 2026.
The estimated 7.5 million Bangladeshis who live in other countries, including Mr Rahman, have the legal right to vote in elections from overseas.
Sydney-based researcher Ashraful Azad said that in practice, however, complex postal voting procedures prevented them from doing so.
Bangladesh is the sixth-largest migrant-sending country in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Many Bangladeshis work largely in wealthy Gulf nations in the Middle East, as well as parts of Asia including Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.
A smaller, though growing, population of highly skilled migrants live in Western nations including Australia.
Bangladeshis abroad provide a vital source of economic growth via remittances they send home.
But it remained "almost impossible for this large diaspora to vote", Dr Azad found in recent research for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
Local media reported in April that the Bangladesh Election Commission was assessing the feasibility of postal ballots, online voting or voting by proxy for overseas residents, but would not commit to a timeframe for implementation.
Iffath Yeasmine, who is studying for her masters in Australia, told the ABC she wanted to be able to choose the next government.
"But logistically speaking, it won't be possible for me to fly from Sydney to Dhaka to Chittagong, where I'm from, just to vote," she said.
Like many Bangladeshis, Ms Yeasmine said she had been unaware of her right to vote overseas — but would like to see the country's interim government make that a reality.
The ABC contacted the Bangladesh Election Commission and the country's embassy in Australia for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.
"It's really important that our voice is heard," said Ms Yeasmine, who previously worked for the United Nations in Bangladesh.
"We don't want to limit our right [to participate in the election] to a few social media posts."
Main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) boycotted the 2024 general election because it argued Ms Hasina was staging a "sham election".
Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate appointed as interim leader of Bangladesh, has pledged to restore its democratic institutions.
"Sheikh Hasina was the key to the problem. She held fake elections one after another," Mr Yunus told FRANCE24 last year.
"We are free from all the oppression … all the mismanagement, all the corruption."
Yet holding elections announced for April 2026 will be a major undertaking.
Despite intending to fly to Bangladesh, Mr Rahman acknowledged that "holding a fully free and fair election will be difficult".
"The anti-Awami League forces are fragmented and lack unity," he said.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party is expected to win government at the general election — not least because the Awami League has, controversially, been barred from participating.
While the BNP and its former ally, the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party, might appeal to segments of Bangladesh's Muslim majority, Flinders University democracy researcher Intifar Chowdhury wrote recently that they had "limited resonance with younger voters".
"At the same time, radical, right-wing, Islamist forces are exploiting the vacuum to reassert themselves, exacerbating tensions between Muslims and the Hindu minority," she said.
"We would be very keen to vote," said Chapal Choudhury, a Bangladeshi Hindu who has lived in Australia since 2004.
Hindus make up almost 10 per cent of Bangladesh's 174 million people, many of whom had supported Ms Hasina's secular-leaning Awami League.
Once Ms Hasina was booted from power, rioters targeted symbols of the Awami League and, in some cases, Hindus.
Mr Choudhury said he was concerned about the safety of his family — half of whom he said had already fled to Canada or India.
"The Islamic fundamentalists are taking the opportunity, exploiting the situation, to go after the minorities," he said.
Human Rights Watch alleged this week that Bangladesh's interim government had used arbitrary detention to target perceived political opponents.
"The hope of the thousands who braved lethal violence a year ago when they opposed Sheikh Hasina's abusive rule to build a rights-respecting democracy remains unfulfilled," said Human Rights Watch's deputy Asia director, Meenakshi Ganguly.
"The interim government appears stuck, juggling an unreformed security sector, sometimes violent religious hardliners, and political groups that seem more focused on extracting vengeance on Hasina's supporters than protecting Bangladeshis' rights."
The Bangladeshi Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs was approached for comment by the ABC.
Mr Choudhury said members of his family in Bangladesh who historically supported the Awami League had been threatened or extorted since Ms Hasina's fall from power.
While Ms Yeasmine agreed with blocking the Awami League from participating in the next general election, she said the voices of their voters still mattered.
"I want fairness for everyone, even for the people who had supported the ousted prime minister," she said.
"I want safety and security for them as well because their voice matters in democracy."