Exiled leader Hasina denounces upcoming Bangladesh polls after party ban 

Bangladesh’s toppled leader Sheikh Hasina has denounced her country’s election next month after her party was barred from participating in the polls, raising fears of wider political division and possible unrest.

In a message published by The Associated Press news agency on Thursday, Hasina said “a government born of exclusion cannot unite a divided nation.”

Hasina, who was sentenced to death in absentia for her crackdown on a student uprising in 2024 that killed hundreds of people and led to the fall of her 15-year government, has been sharpening her critique of the interim government of Nobel Peace winner Muhammad Yunus in recent days, as the election that will shape the nation’s next chapter looms.

“Each time political participation is denied to a significant portion of the population, it deepens resentment, delegitimises institutions and creates the conditions for future instability,” the former leader, who is living in exile in India, warned in her email to the AP.

She also claimed that the current Bangladesh government deliberately disenfranchised millions of her supporters by excluding her party – the former governing Awami League – from the election.

More than 127 million people in Bangladesh are eligible to vote in the February 12 election, widely seen as the country’s most consequential in decades and the first since Hasina’s removal from power after the mass uprising.

Yunus’s government is overseeing the process, with voters also weighing a proposed constitutional referendum on sweeping political reforms.

Campaigning started last week, with rallies in the capital, Dhaka, and elsewhere.

Yunus returned to Bangladesh and took over three days after Hasina fled to India on August 5, 2024, following weeks of violent unrest.

He has promised a free and fair election, but critics question whether the process will meet democratic standards and whether it will be genuinely inclusive after the ban on Hasina’s Awami League.

There are also concerns over security and uncertainty surrounding the referendum, which could bring about major changes to the constitution.

Yunus’s office said in a statement to the AP that security forces will ensure an orderly election and will not allow anyone to influence the outcome through coercion or violence. International observers and human rights groups have been invited to monitor the process, the statement added.

Tarique Rahman, the son of former prime minister and Hasina rival, Khaleda Zia, returned to Bangladesh after his mother’s death in December.

Rahman, the acting chairman of Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is a strong candidate to win the forthcoming election.

On Friday, Hasina made her first public speech since her ouster, telling a packed press club in Delhi that Bangladesh “will never experience free and fair elections” under Yunus’s watch.

Her remarks on Friday were broadcast online and streamed live to more than 100,000 of her supporters.

The statement was criticised by Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which issued a statement saying it was “surprised” and “shocked” that India had allowed her to make a public address.

Bangladesh has been asking India to extradite Hasina, but New Delhi has yet to comment on the request.

India’s past support for Hasina has frayed relations between the South Asian neighbours since her overthrow.