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Can Bangladesh's new leader bring change after election landslide?
Just over two years ago, when Sheikh Hasina won an election widely condemned as rigged in her favour, it was hard to imagine her 15-year grip on power being broken so suddenly, or that a rival party that had been virtually written off would make such a resounding comeback.
But in the cycle of Bangladeshi politics, this is one more flip-flop between Hasina's Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which have alternated holding power for decades.
Except this is the first time that new BNP leader Tarique Rahman is formally leading the party - and the first time he's contested an election.
His mother Khaleda Zia, who died of an illness late last year, was the party's head for four decades. She took over after his father, Ziaur Rahman, the BNP founder and a key leader of Bangladesh's war for independence, was assassinated.
Accused of benefitting from nepotism when his mother was in power, Tarique Rahman has also faced allegations of corruption. Five days before his mother died he returned to Bangladesh after 17 years of self-imposed exile in London.
And while Rahman, 60, has on occasion been the de-facto chair of an emaciated BNP when his mother was jailed and more recently when she was ill, he's largely seen as an untested leader.
That he doesn't have prior experience probably works for him, because people are willing to give change a chance," says political scientist Navine Murshid. "They want to think that new, good things are actually possible. So there is a lot of hope.
The party says its first priority is to bring democracy back to Bangladesh.
"All the democratic institutions [and] financial institutions, which have been destroyed over the last decade, we have to first put those back in order," senior BNP leader Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury told the BBC shortly after the election was called.
Bangladesh has a long history of such promises being made and broken, with parties becoming increasingly authoritarian once they come to power.
But this time, the country's young, who came out in the "July uprising" of 2024 that ousted Hasina, appear less tolerant of accepting more of the same.
"We don't want to fight again," says Tazin Ahmed, a 19-year-old who participated in the uprising.
The stepping down of the previous prime minister was not the victory. When our country runs smoothly without any corruption, and the economy becomes good, that will be our main victory.
Her cousin Tahmina Tasnim, 21, says: "The first thing we want is unity among the people. We have the right to a stable nation and a stable economy. We have been part of an uprising and we know how to fight back. So if the same things start again, we will have the right to do it again."
Since Hasina was ousted, violence has marred the tenure of Bangladesh's interim leader Mohammad Yunus.
Getting a grip on law and order will need to be a key priority for the new government. Reviving the economy, reducing food prices and creating jobs for Bangladesh's large young population are other massive challenges.
Sociologist Samina Luthfa says the lack of experience of running a government affects all parties.
For the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami, which has been banned twice in Bangladesh's history, including under Hasina, this is its first time winning a sizeable number of seats.
Its alliance partner, the National Citizens Party (NCP), formed by some of the students who led the uprising, has won six seats in its debut performance.
"We are going to see leaders in the parliament who have never been to the parliament before," Luthfa says.
NCP youngsters have a lot to learn. The others are seasoned politicians but they do not have the experience of running the country. So it's going to be an uphill task.
Jamaat's manifesto was secular and development-focused, making no mention of Islamic law.
But its website reads: "Jamaat performs in political arena because Islamic law can't be implemented without political force", which has always led to questions about what the party would do if it ever came to power.
Murshid says Jamaat's performance in this election is unsurprising.
"Jamaat is a very organised political party. For the last several decades, they have worked relentlessly at the grassroots level," she says.
I think that has to be recognised but, of course, the problematic part is that they are inherently anti-democratic, misogynistic and patriarchal.
Luthfa says all parties have let the women of Bangladesh down. Just over 4% of candidates were women.
"We the women who were part of the July uprising - all political parties have failed to translate our collective agency into a more formal political, electoral arena," she says.
Parliament members now need to make haste so that they can bring in skilled, honest and deserving candidates to the seats reserved for women in parliament.
Of the 350 seats in Bangladesh's parliament, 300 are elected and the remaining 50 are reserved for women who are nominated by political parties in proportion to their electoral performance.
While this election was starkly different from the past few polls under Hasina – being genuinely competitive, with the outcome not known before polling began - the barring of her party from the election has cast a shadow over its credibility.
Given its claims of reviving democracy, when asked if it would support bringing the Awami League back into the political fold, senior BNP leader Chowdhury said: "It is not for us to decide.
For the Awami League to come back to the electoral process in Bangladesh, it's going to take a while, because their credibility is in question. When you are accused of killing your own people, of atrocities, persecution, then the people will decide where they fit in in the future of Bangladesh politics.
From her exile in India, Hasina has termed Thursday's poll an "election of deception and farce" and has called for a fresh election in which the Awami League is allowed to participate.
At the moment, public anger against her party is intense, but given Bangladesh's political history, it would be premature to write off the Awami League forever.
Additional reporting by Aakriti Thapar
Source: BBC
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