Will Tarique Rahman be Bangladesh’s new PM? From exile to frontrunner

It’s a momentous day in Bangladesh. Eighteen months after a Gen-Z get up ousted Sheikh Hasina from vitality — she fled the nation and has been in India ever since — the South Asian nation is going to the polls in what’s being dubbed because the first effectively free and pleasing election in additional than a decade.

About
127 million registered voters are eligible to solid votes to elect 350 individuals of the Jatiya Sangsad, the nation’s parliament. This time around, the 2 necessary blocs competing within the polls are the Bangladesh Nationalist Birthday celebration (BNP), led by Tarique Rahman, and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JIB), which heads an 11-party alliance, including the Nationwide Citizen Birthday celebration, a group formed by college students who led the anti-Hasina drag in 2024.

In the period in-between, Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, which dominated Bangladeshi politics for a long time, has been barred from fielding candidates.

Outdated idea polls and surveys beget instantaneous that the BNP is decided for a victory in this day’s election. If that’s the case, it would possibly possibly per chance well price a incredible reversal of fortune for Rahman, the snug‑spoken 60‑year‑former who left the nation in 2008.

• Salvage reside updates from
  Bangladesh election voting right here

The upward thrust of Tarique Rahman

Tarique Rahman is the eldest son of archaic Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman and three-time
High Minister Khaleda Zia. His father, Current Ziaur Rahman, primarily based the BNP on September 1, 1978. He moreover performed a necessary feature in Bangladesh’s liberation and situation up the first civil administration in Roumari, a attach that became reclaimed from Pakistani forces.

Rahman studied global family at the University of Dhaka, dropped out, and later started firms in textiles and agro‑products.

In his mother’s third term as prime minister, between 2001 and 2006, Rahman became usually most incessantly known as ‘darkish prince’. Furthermore, he became believed to be the de facto boss, with many even noting that he ran a ‘shadow PMO’ out of Hawa Bhaban.

In 2007, Rahman became arrested by the caretaker authorities and held for 17 months on different costs. He became convicted in absentia on a few costs, including cash laundering, besides to a case linked to the alleged space to rupture Hasina.

The following year, he fled Bangladesh and moved to the UK, declaring that he wished clinical treatment. He became within the UK till December 2025.

The prodigal son returns

When
Rahman returned to Bangladesh closing December, together along with his wife, Zubaida, and daughter, Zaima, he received a hero’s welcome. For Rahman, the return became weighted down with emotions. As he told The Times, “It’s emotional that I would — and I in point of fact beget — come help to my americans.”

Nevertheless, pleasing 5 days later, his mother, Bangladesh’s first female High Minister Khaleda Zia, passed away following a prolonged sickness. “It’s very heavy in my coronary heart,” acknowledged Rahman, eyes welling. “However the lesson I realized from her is that within the event you would possibly per chance per chance well beget a accountability, or now no longer it is crucial to manufacture it.”

Following Zia’s funeral, Rahman formally assumed office because the chairman of the BNP. Beforehand, he served because the performing chairman of the BNP.

Since then, Rahman has been rallying in all places for the BNP. “We can fabricate a Bangladesh that a mother dreams of,” he acknowledged, calling on electorate from the hills and plains – Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians – to affix him in making a stable and inclusive nation.

In election rallies, he has pledged to toughen the nation’s infrastructure, amongst other guarantees. “If elected, the healthcare blueprint will be improved, a flyover will be constructed in Sherpur, permanent embankments will be constructed within the river erosion areas of Dhunat, and the formative years will be made self-reliant by the establishment of IT education institutions,” he smartly-known.

Furthermore, he guarantees a transformed economy valued at $1 trillion by 2034 and jobs for 10 million in 5 years. His international policy moreover specializes in strategic autonomy.

Many analysts level to that since his return to Bangladesh, Rahman has utilised his mother’s title and performed to the persona cult surrounding her legacy because the first female prime minister, besides to that of his father.

However Rahman refutes that tell, pronouncing that he’s the right particular person to rule the nation. “It’s now no longer as a result of I’m the son of my father and mother,” he became quoted as telling TIME magazine. “My party supporters are the motive I’m right here this day.”

Political watchers beget moreover seen that in all places in the campaigning, the 60-year-former BNP chief has tried to project himself as a statesman. Now now no longer is the brash man of 2001-2006 seen. And to additional this softening of image, there’s the family cat —
Jebu.

However Rahman’s road to vitality is rocky

Despite all his efforts, Rahman faces several challenges and the baggage of the past to take care of. Whereas he has tried to transfer past his old image of being brash, many serene refer to him as Khamba Tarique, referring to an alleged corruption scandal whereby thousands of electricity poles, or khamba, were reportedly equipped from an affiliate at inflated prices nonetheless by no device connected to the grid.

There’s moreover the subject of being a ways from Bangladesh see you later. Many voters factor in that Rahman is out of contact with actuality. As 26-year-former Kabir, a necessary-time voter in Dhaka, acknowledged: “He hasn’t situation foot in Bangladesh in 17 years. How can he know what’s happening right here, at a grassroots level?”

Many political pundits moreover level to his lack of homework in all places in the election marketing campaign. Many of his speeches are peppered with right inaccuracies, causing doubts amongst voters, especially the undecided ones.

Political analyst Dilara Chowdhury, who has studied the nationalist politics of Rahman’s americans, told Al Jazeera, “He has taken payment of the marketing campaign, nonetheless there’s extremely miniature homework. He ends up pronouncing many issues which will be merely atrocious, like claiming he’ll plant 500 million trees. That is now no longer a decent proposition.”

Chowdhury moreover questioned Rahman’s flagship policy proposals, including a “family card” to give monthly cash to girls folk and the unemployed. “Whenever you discuss family cards, the evident seek files from is where the cash will come from,” she became quoted as telling Al Jazeera. “And even as you present allowances to the unemployed indefinitely, there is a possibility that the economy turns into much less productive.”

Nevertheless, without reference to those challenges, interestingly the ‘darkish prince’ has the sting in this day’s election. That’s primarily as a result of the
Jamaat-led alliance lacks astronomical national attraction, while the NCP, without reference to its youthful vitality, remains untested and organisationally weak.

However as they are saying, one thing else can happen in politics.

With inputs from agencies