Dhaka, Bangladesh – Bangladesh students who led the mass protest last year have set up a political party before Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s parliamentary elections scheduled to be held the following year.
Speaking to a rally on Manik Meer Avenue, adjacent to the capital’s parliament building on Friday, the new National Citizens Party (NCP) leader argued that he would pursue a politics of national unity, transparency and good governance over an independent foreign policy to build a “second Republic.”
Lima Akhtar, sister to Ismail Hossein Raby, among those killed by security forces during the July uprising against Hasina, announced that Nahid Islam will become the convener of the new party.
Islam – The 26-year-old poster boy from the July uprising that overthrew Hasina, and later the deputy directors of Bangladesh’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, will lead the new party. Islam resigned from the interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus on Tuesday, and will initially take on leadership of the new party, which has a central committee of around 150 members.
Yunus, who has led the interim government since Hasina’s departure in August, said the general election will take place in December or early 2026.
Shafikul Islam, a third-year nursing student at Ghazi Muniba Rahman College of Nursing in Patuakhali district, who attended the launch event on Friday, said, “There was no freedom of expression under the previous administration. We do not want violence in educational institutions in the name of politics. Corruption remains a major obstacle to our progress and we hope for a lasting end to it. This new party is our hope.”
On Wednesday, the former student leader (SAD), a student movement that overthrew Hasina’s Awami League government, launched a new student organization, Ganatantrik Chhatra Sangsad or the Democratic Student Council (DSC), and saw a brief brawl between the two sad factions.
According to DSC leaders, the sadness was formed to organize the July movement, along with the participation of students from various political parties who returned to their respective organizations. Moreover, many of its leaders are currently participating in new political parties.
“We have formed this new organization and are supporting the spirit of the July movement among students,” DSC convener Abu Baker Matsumah said at the launch of the group.
He emphasized that the organization will remain independent and will not partner with political parties, including the NCP.
However, analysts view it as a new party’s alliance and share the same spirit as the July movement.
A new chapter in Bangladeshi politics
Political analysts said the youth-led NCP was intended to overturn Bangladesh’s political landscape and was ruled for decades by two women-led family dynasties. Hasina’s family is derived from Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s founding leader who was also the founder of the Awami League Party. Then there is the family of former Prime Minister Caleda Zia. Zia’s late husband, former military ruler Ziaur Rahman, founded the main opposition Bangladeshi Nationalist Party (BNP).
Rahman’s 76-year-old daughter, Hasina, sought asylum in neighbouring India when a student-led movement forced her out of power. Her 15-year government was characterized by the country’s massive economic interests and extensive allegations of corruption, violations and authoritarianism.
The BNP, who wants to control the next parliamentary election, is led by the ill Zia, 79, and her son, Tarike Rahman. Zia was taken to London, where her son lives in exile last month to treat liver and heart complications.
In addition to the two major political groups, Islamist organizations such as Bangladeshi Jamaat e Islami (BJI), and left-leaning groups such as Bangladeshi Communist Party have previously maintained their role as influential pressure groups in Bangladeshi politics.
The newly formed party leaders argued that Bangladeshi politics have long been defined by secularism vs Islamic law to Pakistan or their own homeland during the 1971 liberation movement, or what considers people’s loyalty as a “schizophrenia.”
They argued that these sectors push livelihood, health and education issues into margins. Jamaat was often politically allied with the BNP, opposed Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan.
“In Bangladesh tomorrow, they do not want these sectors to last. Akhtar Hossen, appointed as one of the member secretaries of the new party, wants to ensure Akhtar Hossen equal rights for everyone, whether they are professors at university or people of lower classes of society.
The party founders said they gathered opinions from around 200,000 people, both online and offline, on the types of politics they should pursue and issues that require urgent attention. They said the response revealed a strong desire to eradicate corruption, reform education and ensure universal access to health care.
Speaking from the stage on Friday, Islam said: We will rebuild our state with Bangladesh in the heart of our country and keep the interests of its people first. ”
Akhter spoke to Al Jazeera and said that the new party would avoid ideological division.
“Our politics is about good governance, ensuring equality and ensuring citizens’ benefits for everyone,” he said.
Akhter said the new party was inspired by similar parties overseas: India’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Teherek-e-Insaf (PTI), and Torkiye’s Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Actors also said that conditions that encouraged the creation of these political movements existed in Bangladesh.
The AAP came from the popular anti-corruption movement in 2012 and ruled Delhi’s metropolitan area for more than a decade before losing to the Hindu majority Bharatiyajanata Party (BJP) this month. The AAP still controls Punjab, northern India.
Khan’s PTI defeated the stranglehold of Pakistan’s Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Pakistan People’s Party, two major family-based parties, to win the 2018 election. Khan, then prime minister, lost power in 2022 after he was removed by a no-confidence vote. He is currently in prison for many cases he claims to be politically motivated. Despite these set-offs, the party, as proven in last year’s national elections, is Pakistan’s most popular political force, and the PTI candidates who were forced to compete as independents after the party lost its symbol, won a single, large-scale seat in the parliament.
The AK Party of Turkish Recept Tayyip Erdogan has been ruled for nearly 25 years, and now it shows signs of a major challenge in its power.
Akhter said that “it doesn’t mean recreating those parties” in search of inspiration from these moves.
“Bangladesh has its own context and we aim to set clear examples,” he said.
The difficult road ahead
However, analysts said it would be their main immediate struggle for the new party to face a series of challenges, overcome internal rifts, present a united front, and present itself as something different from existing political entities.
Shortly after joining the interim government, student leaders announced the creation of the National Citizens’ Committee (NCC), a platform aimed at uniting people from diverse political backgrounds as the country restructured itself after Hasina.
The idea was to provide the people of Bangladeshi with a new political compact. However, since the story began that new political parties began last month, conflicts have emerged within the NCC as most factions agree with Islam as their leader, but clashing with other important positions.
On Wednesday, Ali Asan Zonaed and Rafferman Rifat – part of Sad, a student wing of Jamaat, former leader of Bangladesh Islami Chhatrashibir – announced on Facebook that they will not be joining the new party.
They and other student leaders of Jamaat student body claim that because of their political affiliation they are protected from the important positions of the new party. Zonaed said in his post he was hoping for a new party well. However, Alihuru Islam, co-secretary of the new party, told Al Jazeera that the proposal for division was exaggerated and that student leaders in the Jamat chain could later be included in leadership positions.
These open tensions reflect the challenges facing the new party, said political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman.
He noted that unlike Islam, some student leaders remain in the interim government. It is unclear whether or when they may attend the new party. “By joining the interim government, they share their successes and failures,” Rahman told Al Jazeera.
Rahman said the party contained figures from the entire ideological spectrum, from left to conservatives, leading to fears of “internal ideological friction.” He added that it would prevent the party from becoming a “cohesive force.”
However, Joban Magazine analyst and editor Rezaul Karim Rony argued that leadership struggles within political parties are natural and that Islam could leave a central figure in the movement.
Still, Ronnie warned that it’s not enough to form a party alone. “We must recognize that broad support during the uprising (hasina) will not automatically turn into political support,” he said, underscoring the need for a “vision that brings together people who resonate beyond rhetoric.”
And how have existing parties in Bangladesh reacted to the arrival of new rivals?
In September, when student leaders first announced plans to form their own party, BNP deputy leader Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir questioned the neutrality of the interim government and warned that people would reject the “nation-sponsored king’s party.”
Jamaat repeated these feelings from that time. Jamaat leader Shafikl Rahman said, “Even if you participate in politics or form a party, those who are now part of the interim government as non-party figures are no longer neutral.”
However, since Islam resigned from the government this week, both the BNP and Jamaat have eased their stance. “We welcome the new party. We are currently not disputing as individuals to lead the new party have resigned from the government,” Alamgir told Al Jazeera.
Secretary-General Jamaat, Mia Gollum Palwar, also welcomed the establishment of a new party, but caution was needed.
“We have a bitter history of rulers who form state-backed parties and impose authoritarianism on the people. But I would like to believe that this new party will introduce a democratic, safe and inclusive approach to Bangladeshi politics and benefit the people,” he said.
For now, the new party has narrow opportunities, analysts said.
“The July uprising sparked a desire for new politics among the people of Bangladeshi. If the new party can meet this demand, it could become the dominant political force in Bangladesh,” said Ronnie. “If not, it’s not.”
