The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) expressed its dissatisfaction on Saturday after recent announcement by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus that national elections would be held in April 2026.
The opposition party reaffirmed its call for the elections to be conducted by December 2025 due to public discontent and logistical issues.
"People's victory was won through the huge sacrifices of students and the people during the July uprising. But the unnecessary delay in holding the election has disillusioned and enraged the people," said the party in a statement, as per the Dhaka Tribune.
In an online emergency meeting chaired by acting chairman Tarique Rahman, BNP's national standing committee stressed that the elections should be held earlier. According to the committee, polls in December would be more convenient to coincide with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as well as the continuous academic examinations and weather patterns during the season.
The BNP observed that Yunus's statement ignored the strong public clamor for time-bound polls. "The people of this country, deprived of their minimum voting rights for nearly a decade and a half, have gone on to try to rejuvenate democracy through vote, even as they were disappeared, killed, jailed, injured, and tortured," said the party.
The statement voiced fear that April elections would encounter many obstacles in the form of severe weather and the complexity of mounting campaigns during Ramadan. BNP leaders threatened that such issues could later be exploited to push for another delay in the vote.
Additionally, the BNP criticized Yunus's national address for not providing a convincing rationale for why an election in December was not possible. It also took umbrage at his taking up unrelated issues like ports and regional corridors, saying these do not concern the core mandates of justice, reform, and elections of the interim government.
The session condemned his use of words in the speech, which went beyond political etiquette," the statement further said.
Yunus took charge of the interim government after the toppling of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government in August last year. Reiterating the commitment of the interim government to holding a "clean, peaceful, festive, and inclusive election," he made the speech.
The timeline of the elections has been the focal point, with BNP, under the leadership of ex-Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, and other opposition factions calling for a December election. Yet, some student-led and right-wing political parties, such as the NCP, insist that polling needs to be postponed until all required reforms and measures of justice are in place.
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