DHAKA: Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party announced on Sunday a seat-sharing agreement with a political outfit formed by students who spearheaded last year’s uprising, some of whose members oppose the alliance.
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) appears determined to gain a foothold in government after next year’s general election, the first polls since the student-led revolt toppled prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024.
Islamist movements that were crushed under Hasina’s 15-year autocratic rule have regrouped since her fall, and the Jamaat regards the February 12 vote as its biggest opportunity in decades.
On Sunday, the Jamaat said it had reached an agreement with the student-led National Citizen Party following marathon talks, during which some NCP members had warned against the move.
Jamaat leader Shafiqur Rahman announced a separate agreement with the small Liberal Democratic Party.
“We were eight parties in the alliance. Now two new political parties have joined us,” he said at a press conference.
The Jamaat-led alliance is dominated by fringe Islamist political parties, most of whom held only a handful of seats in previous parliaments.
The majority Muslim nation of 170 million has been in turmoil since the 2024 uprising, and the resurgence of Islamist forces has sparked concern among religious minorities including Sufi Muslims and Hindus, who account for less then 10 percent of the population.
Hardline Islamist groups have called for restrictions on cultural activities they consider “anti-Islamic”, including music and theatre festivals, women’s football matches, and kite-flying celebrations.
Ahead of the tie-up with the Jamaat, at least 30 NCP members wrote to party chief Nahid Islam, opposing the plan to join hands.
In a letter Saturday, they said NCP’s ideology and its commitment to democratic values contradicted those of the Jamaat.
Tasnim Jara, who was looking to run on the NCP ticket, quit on Saturday, followed on Sunday by another aspiring candidate, Tasnuva Jabin.
Senior party figure Samantha Sharmin warned in a social media post Sunday that the party would have to pay a “high price” for its alliance with Islamists.
The NCP was formed in March, promising centrist politics that would be “democratic, egalitarian, and people-oriented”.
The party has not issued a statement concerning the alliance with the Jamaat.
With Hasina’s Awami League barred from the election, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is widely tipped to win the polls.
The BNP has been energised by the return of its acting chairman Tarique Rahman to Bangladesh on Thursday after 17 years in exile in Britain.
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