Zakir Hossain / Dhaka
Nahid Islam, convener of the student-led National Citizen Party (NCP), on Sunday cast doubt over Bangladesh’s February polls, saying elections were unlikely unless reforms were ensured under the July Charter.
“We want to participate in the (Constituent Assembly) election on the legal basis of the July Charter. Beyond that, I don’t think any election will take place,” he said at a diaspora event in Malaysia titled “The Heroic Uprising of 2024 and the Role of the Diaspora in Building Post-Revolution Bangladesh.”
He added that NCP never debated election dates. “If reforms and justice are ensured, even if the election is held in December, we will have no objection.” Rejecting speculation about seat-sharing with BNP, he said: “Talks about postponing elections or similar claims are just baseless gossip… Seat-sharing negotiations are false propaganda and rumours.”
For Nahid, reforms remain central. “After the mass uprising, we want to be able to tell the people that we brought about the change— either through the revolution or through the July Charter. That’s why reform is our main agenda. Only after reforms will we think about elections.”
Meanwhile, interim chief adviser Muhammad Yunus said Bangladesh was ready for its next general election after last year’s bloody uprising. “Now, we are ready for another transition… the country has come to this stable enough and ready to have the election. So, we announce the election in the first half of February 2026,” he told an international conference on the Rohingya crisis in Cox’s Bazar. Recalling the events of 2024, Yunus said, “One year back, we went through a killing spree. And followed by a student-led uprising to free the country from the fascist regime.”