Bangladesh Elections to be held on THIS date, results will be announced on…; check schedule

Bangladesh Elections were announced on Thursday.

Bangladesh Elections: General elections in Bangladesh, the country’s first after last year’s ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, will be held on February 12, 2026, Bangladesh Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin announced on Thursday. In a televised address to the nation, the CEC said, “Voting will take place on February 12, 2026, from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm.”

Bangladesh elections schedule

As per the election schedule announced by the poll panel, the last date for submission of nomination papers is December 29, and scrutiny of nominations will be held from December 30 to January 4. The last date for withdrawal of candidature is January 20.

The final list of candidates will be published on January 21. Election campaigns will begin on January 22 and continue until 7:30 am on February 10, the CEC stated.

Notably, the last general elections in Bangladesh were held in January 2024, in which Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League had secured a landslide win, amid controversy and boycott by major opposition parties, including former PM Khaleda Zia-led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

The announcement of Bangladesh elections came a a day after the CEC met President Mohammed Shahabuddin, who assured him “optimum support and cooperation” to conduct the general elections in a “free, fair and meaningful” manner.

First elections since Hasina’s ouster

The elections will be Bangladesh’s first after former PM Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League was ousted from power. Hasina had secured a massive victory in the 2024 polls, but six months later, mass student-led protests erupted against her regime, forcing the 78-year-old leader to flee to India, where she has been living since.

Days after Hasina’s ouster, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took over as chief adviser of the interim government, which disbanded the Awami League earlier this year.

Sheikh Hasina has been convicted of multiple crimes by a special tribunal and sentenced to death.

Will Zia’s BNP emerge as major force in Bangladesh?

In the absence of Hasina’s Awami League, Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), has emerged as the as the frontrunner, with its once ally Jamaat-e-Islami being the main rival.

However, Zia, 80, is critically ill, and its believed that BNP is being steered by her self-exiled elder son and party’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman from London, where he is staying since 2008.

Both parties have already announced the names of their nominees in the election for the 300-seat parliament.

Jamaat, which was opposed to Bangladesh’s 1971 independence, was in a state of wilderness and eventually banned days ahead of the past government’s ouster, has re-emerged — under the leadership of Shafiqur Rahman — visibly with extra vigour after the students’ protest.

The National Citizen Party (NCP), formed in February this year, is a political outfit of Students Against Discrimination (SAD) that led last year’s violent street movement leading to Hasina’s ouster.

The NCP has allied with Amar Bangladesh (AB) party, the offshoot of right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami, and the Rashtra Songskar Andolon to form an alliance called ‘Gonotantrik Sangskar Jote.’