Bangladesh to hold elections on February 12 next year, first since Sheikh Hasina's exit

Bangladesh's last elections were held in January 2024, when Sheikh Hasina returned to office for the fourth consecutive time.

Bangladesh’s next national elections would be held on Feb. 12, eighteen months after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted through a mass uprising following weeks of violence that left hundreds dead and thousands injured, the chief election commissioner said Thursday.

A vendor sells newspapers with headlines about the news of the ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina's death sentence on charges of crimes against humanity for ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, November 18, 2025. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain (REUTERS)

AMM. Nasir Uddin confirmed the date in a televised address to the nation.

The country’s last elections were held in January 2024, when Hasina returned to office for the fourth consecutive time. The 2024 elections were controversial and boycotted by major rivals of Hasina who accused her administration of rigging the vote.

Hasina fled the country to India on Aug. 5 in the wake of huge protests last summer, and she has been in exile since.

An interim government headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has been running the country since Aug. 8, 2024. The Yunus-led administration has banned all activities of Hasina’s Awami League party, which means the former ruling party would not be able to join the race.

The new elections would be the 13th since the country gained independence from Pakistan through a bloody war in 1971.