Bangladesh holds first contested presidential election in 35 years

Bangladesh’s lawmakers are voting in the country’s first contested presidential election since 1991, with ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party candidate Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir facing retired army officer Oli Ahmad of the Jamaat-e-Islami-led opposition alliance.

A total of 349 members of parliament are eligible to cast their ballots in the parliamentary chamber between 8 am and 11 am GMT on Thursday. The Election Commission is expected to announce the result later in the day, Al Jazeera reported.

The election was necessitated by the resignation of Mohammed Shahabuddin in July, midway through his five-year term. Shahabuddin was elected unopposed in 2023 as the nominee of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League.

He remained in office through Hasina’s removal following the August 2024 uprising, the subsequent interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus and the BNP’s return to power in February 2026.

Thursday’s contest is the first presidential election with more than one candidate since October 1991, when the BNP’s Abdur Rahman Biswas defeated Awami League nominee Badrul Haider Chowdhury by 172 votes to 92. Every presidential election held since then has been uncontested.

Despite its historic character, the result is considered largely certain. The BNP holds 247 of the 349 parliamentary seats eligible to vote, while the Jamaat-led 11-party opposition alliance has 90.

Alamgir, therefore, enters the contest with a commanding numerical advantage over Ahmad. However, the presence of two candidates gives the vote symbolic importance as Bangladesh attempts to rebuild its political institutions two years after the uprising that ended Hasina’s 15-year rule.

The 78-year-old Alamgir has long been one of the BNP’s most recognisable leaders. He became its acting secretary-general in 2011 and formally assumed the position in 2016, serving as a leading voice of the party during its years in opposition.

Following the BNP’s victory in this year’s election, Alamgir was appointed minister for local government, rural development and cooperatives.

Al Jazeera reported that addressing a BNP parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday, Alamgir thanked Prime Minister Tarique Rahman for nominating him and pledged to uphold Bangladesh’s independence and sovereignty. Rahman urged party lawmakers to support Alamgir in the vote.

His rival, 85-year-old Ahmad, is a decorated veteran of Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War, a six-time MP and chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party.

Ahmad left the army in 1979 and joined the BNP the following year. Once a close associate of former President Ziaur Rahman, the father of the incumbent prime minister, he later served as communications minister under Khaleda Zia before establishing the LDP in 2006.

His candidature has produced an unusual political alignment. Ahmad fought for Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, while Jamaat, the principal party supporting his nomination, opposed the Liberation War and backed Pakistan.

Although Ahmad has little realistic prospect of victory, the opposition alliance has presented him as an experienced and widely acceptable candidate whose presence ensures that the next president is chosen through a contest.

The election has also renewed scrutiny of the limited authority of Bangladesh’s presidency. Under Article 48(3) of the Constitution, the president is generally required to act on the prime minister’s advice, except when appointing the prime minister and the chief justice.

Political scientist Ali Riaz, who served as co-chair of the National Consensus Commission on state reforms under the Yunus administration, welcomed the return of a contested election but said its impact on governance would be limited because the president possesses little independent power.

The July National Charter, adopted after the 2024 uprising and endorsed through a referendum during this year’s election, proposed that the president be elected by members of both houses of parliament. However, the planned upper chamber, intended to exercise powers over important constitutional and statutory institutions, has yet to be established.

The vote has also reopened debate over Article 70 of the Constitution, under which MPs risk losing their seats if they vote against their party. Questions have been raised over whether the provision should apply when lawmakers elect the head of state.

Families of those killed during the 2024 uprising have broadly welcomed the election, although some have questioned whether a ballot has genuine meaning if lawmakers are unable to vote independently of their parties.

For all its constitutional limitations and predictable arithmetic, the election marks a rare departure in Bangladesh’s recent political history: lawmakers will choose between two candidates for the presidency for the first time in three and a half decades.