Bangladesh poll rivals rally on final day of campaign

DHAKA: Bangladesh’s election campaign entered its final day Monday ahead of the February 12 vote, as rival parties invoked the 2024 uprising that ended the autocratic rule of Sheikh Hasina.

Tens of thousands of flag waving supporters have attended weeks of rival rallies across the sprawling capital Dhaka, as parties each seek to harness the legacy of the mass uprising – and pitch competing visions of change for the country of 170 million.

The South Asian nation will elect a new parliament, with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) – led by Tarique Rahman, who returned in December after 17 years in exile – widely tipped as a frontrunner.

The BNP’s Rahman led a rally on Sunday in Dhaka’s Mirpur neighbourhood – constituency of Shafiqur Rahman, the leader of his main rival, Jamaat-e-Islami.

“I can talk about him forever, but that won’t benefit the people of Bangladesh,” the BNP leader said about the Islamist chief, to crowds waving flags with the party symbol, a sheaf of rice.

A heavy deployment of armed police monitored the rally, with drones hovering above, as he backed the local BNP candidate Shafiqul Islam Milton.

“Help him win the election, and he will take care of you once elected,” Rahman told the BNP crowds.

Rahman, 60, better known in Bangladesh as Tarique Zia, assumed leadership of the BNP following the death of his mother, former prime minister Khaleda Zia, who died in December at the age of 80.

Hasina’s Awami League was banned by the interim government from running in the elections, a move criticised by rights groups.

‘Long live the revolution’

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Shafiqur Rahman meanwhile addressed a packed rally in the Dhaka-11 constituency, a flashpoint during the August 5, 2024 uprising that toppled the Awami League government of Hasina after 15 years in power.

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Shafiqur Rahman, leading a coalition of Islamist parties – under the symbol of weighing scales – accused the former ruling party of widespread repression, but warned that new forms of abuse had quickly followed its fall.

“A section of the oppressed turned into oppressors just a day after August 5,” he said, alleging extortion and corruption by returning political figures.

“Common people, business owners - even beggars - are now fed up. Justice has been sent into exile.”

Jamaat, ideologically aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, and seeking a return to formal politics after years of bans and crackdowns, has allied with the National Citizen Party (NCP), formed by student leaders who spearheaded the uprising.

NCP leader Nahid Islam accused major parties of quietly sharing the “businesses of extortion and crime” for decades.

“If you elect me, I will dedicate myself to the betterment of the area,” Islam vowed, especially thanking women supporters and warning: “If we lose, August 5 will also lose.”

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Supporters chanted popular slogans from the uprising.

“Long live the revolution!” supporters shouted.

“Slavery or freedom?”, they chanted, replying in unison, “Freedom, freedom!”

Among them was Mohammed Harun, 65, who said he had not voted in 17 years but would back the Jamaat-led alliance in hopes of a “just, corruption and violence-free country”.

Fatema Begum, a 40-year-old housewife, said she wanted a Bangladesh where people could “live independently and speak freely”.

Hasina, 78, sentenced to death in absentia in November for crimes against humanity for the deadly crackdown on protesters in her failed bid to cling to power, remains in hiding in India.