https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/bangladeshis-hand-islamists-a-setback
Dr. Richard Benkin
Yet Bangladesh Remains a Country with Islam as Its Official Religion, and Islamists Are the Most Organized Political Entity
Bangladeshis thwarted Islamists’ attempt to control the South Asian nation of just under 177 million people in its February 12, 2026, elections. Many analysts expected Jamaat-e-Islami to capture enough seats in the Bangladeshi parliament to join the ruling coalition. Bangladeshis instead rejected Islamists and gave the Bangladesh Nationalist Party a landslide victory and an outright majority of seats in the parliament, negating any need for a coalition.
For decades, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Awami League fought for supremacy in an unforgiving competition in which leaders seemed to prefer that Bangladesh fail than their opponents succeed. That changed after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party won the 2001 contest, followed in 2007 by the nation’s fifth coup since its 1971 founding after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party faced accusations of vote rigging. By the next election in 2008, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party won only thirty of 299 seats, giving the Awami League unchallenged power, which it parlayed into three subsequent landslides in elections no one considered free. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party boycotted two of them and the Awami League government partially barred the other. Jamaat-e-Islami would pick up the few seats becoming available during boycotts and bans. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party remained on the outside looking in until Bangladesh’s sixth coup in 2024 ousted the Awami League in response to its authoritarian power grab and heavy-handed methods.
Islamists have long enjoyed popular support among Muslims who comprise over 91 percent of Bangladesh’s population. In 2013, Pew Research Center found Bangladeshi Muslims among the world’s most religiously conservative and among the quickest to support Islamic terrorism. Eighty-two percent favor making sharia the law of the land and 41 percent believe that Islamist parties are better than secular ones. While the Awami League postured as a party friendly toward minorities, it often refrained from action when Islamists attacked Hindus.
After the 2024 coup, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus’s interim government continued patronizing Islamists, enabling their war on Hindus, arresting Hindu community and religious leaders, and sacking Hindu professors. It banned the Awami League from taking part in the elections and Islamists then formed an Eleven Party Alliance. Election violence proliferated, and mid-level intelligence operatives report recovering bodies belonging to activists from all large parties except Jamaat-e-Islami. Frequently kingmakers, Islamists became the most organized political entity in the country. Thus, it was no surprise that polls had Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party almost even just two days before the vote.
Jamaat-e-Islami hurt its brand among those who saw it as more moral than other parties with scandals involving financial misconduct and violating election rules. But two factors allowed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to triumph. First is the long memory of the violence surrounding Bangladesh’s independence. Bangladeshis remember how many Jamaat-e-Islami activists opposed Bangladesh’s 1971 revolution against Pakistani control and, after independence, Bangladeshi authorities convicted several of treason and crimes against humanity. Military leaders from that revolution formed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in 1978. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party embrace of nationalism resonated, especially as Islamists still emphasized an international Muslim ummah.
Second, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party was able to tap into voters otherwise left disenfranchised by the Awami League’s banning. Whatever its sins, the Awami League was the party of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the nation’s founder, and Sheikh Hasina, his daughter, who ruled Bangladesh for just over 20 years spread across several terms. Millions of Awami League voters needed somewhere to go, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party worked to grab them.
While an Islamist defeat is a democratic victory, caution is warranted. Bangladesh remains a country with an official religion, Islam, and Islamists remain the most organized political entity in the country. Although European Union observers declared the election “credible and completely managed,” their teams observed a limited number of polling stations, and missed extensive irregularities, especially in villages. Their preliminary report noted “political violence and persistent fear of mob attacks,” and “integrity safeguards” “not uniformly implemented”; in the final report, “political violence” became “sporadic localised violence” and it omitted the “integrity safeguard” comment. This would not be the first time a European Union body crafted its report to reflect prevailing narratives.
Jamaat-e-Islami, meanwhile, lost many individual races by small numbers and received its highest vote count and number of seats yet.