Is Bangladesh looking beyond Begum-Hasina politics with a Jamaat turn?

The student-led National Citizen Party (NCP) has formed an alliance with the Amar Bangladesh (AB) party, an offshoot of the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami, and the Rashtra Songskar Andolon ahead of Bangladesh’s February election. The coalition is called the ‘Gonotantrik Sangskar Jote’.

The development has sparked questions over whether Bangladesh is moving beyond its long-dominant Begum–Hasina political paradigm.

The NCP, created in February this year with encouragement from Interim Government Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, emerged from Students Against Discrimination (SAD), the group that led last year’s protests which resulted in the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on 5 August 2024.

Announcing the alliance, NCP convenor Nahid Islam said it was the product of more than two years of effort. He described the coming election as one aimed at “political transformation and economic liberation”, with the alliance committed to building a “new Bangladesh”.

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Three student leaders, including Islam, served on the advisory council formed by Yunus after he became chief adviser on 8 August 2024. Islam later stepped down to organise the NCP’s formation.

The AB party, founded in 2020, had split from Jamaat-e-Islami on ideological grounds. Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party, has recently formed an eight-party Islamist coalition as it attempts to build unity among similar groups ahead of the polls.

Yunus’ administration dissolved Hasina’s Awami League, leaving Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) as the strongest remaining political force. However, the BNP continues to be directed from London by her exiled son and acting chairman, Tarique Rahman.

Analysts say the weakening of the two major political parties has created space for Jamaat and other far-right groups to expand their influence in Bangladesh’s shifting political landscape.

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Sheikh Hasina served as prime minister in 1996–2001 and again from 2009 until her resignation and flight from Bangladesh in August 2024. She was ousted following massive student-led protests in July–August 2024, which triggered a political crisis that forced her departure on 5 August 2024.

Her long second tenure (2009–2024) saw economic growth, poverty reduction, major infrastructure projects such as the Padma Bridge, and gains in electrification, garment exports and social indicators. Since leaving office, Hasina and several close associates have faced legal action, including trials and convictions in absentia, with a tribunal sentencing her to death in one case in November 2025.

Khaleda Zia, leader of the BNP, served twice as prime minister — from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006. Her party now operates under the long-distance leadership of her son Tarique Rahman.