Tarique Rahman promises era of clean politics as Bangladesh holds first election since Hasina falls | Bangladesh

Tarique Rahman, who after 17 years in exile is the main contender to be the next prime minister of Bangladeshvowed to end entrenched corruption and put the country on a “new path” as voting began in the first free and fair elections in nearly two decades.

Speaking to the Guardian before polls opened on Thursday morning, Rahman promised a new era of clean politics, including a “top-down, zero tolerance” approach to graft, if his Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) is brought to power.

According to polls, the BNP is likely to win a significant majority over its rival, the Islamist party Jamaat e-Islami, which will return the party to power after 20 years.

Soft-spoken and understated, the 60-year-old Rahman acknowledged the elections come at a crucial but “challenging” moment for Bangladesh, long ranked among the world’s most corrupt countries and where democracy has faced a sustained assault for more than a decade.

“We saw in the last regime that corruption was encouraged,” Rahman said. “Our economy has been left destroyed. It will take time, but if we establish real accountability in every part of government and send a message down the chain, it will finally control corruption.”

The elections are the first since the fall of the autocratic prime minister Sheikh Hasina in the summer of 2024. The student-led uprising that toppled Hasina after 15 years in power left an estimated 1,400 dead, according to the UN, after being met with a ruthless and violent crackdown by the state.

Last year the former prime minister – now in exile in India – he was found guilty of crimes against humanity committed during the last days of his reign and sentenced to death.

For the past three elections, Hasina and her Awami League party have been accused of rigging the results and ruthlessly crushing and jailing opponents, including thousands of BNP activists and leaders.

Since August 2024, Bangladesh has been led by an interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunustasked with restoring democracy and preparing the country for free and fair polls. However, the country remained in turmoil, amid a decline in law and order and frustrations over economic stagnation.

Analysts stressed that a fair and violence-free election would be an essential step forward for the country. There are 127 million registered voters and in an effort to keep security tight, more than 900,000 police, army and security personnel were deployed on polling day.

“This is the first credible election the country has held in 17 years, so it’s incredibly significant,” said Thomas Kean, Crisis Group’s senior consultant on Bangladesh. “People are eager to have the chance to vote after so long.”

In Dhaka, young voters spoke of their excitement to experience democracy first hand. “I’m excited, it’s the first time I’m freely participating in an election,” said Yasmin Sorupa, 30, who said she plans to vote BNP. “In the past, I could never cast my vote because when I went to the polling station, someone had already cast it.”

Rahman returned to Bangladesh to fight the election on Christmas Day, ending more than 17 years spent as a political fugitive. He took over the leadership of the BNP from his mother, former prime minister Khaleda Zia, a giant of Bangladeshi politics and longtime political nemesis of Hasina. His died just five days after Rahman’s return home in December.

“Physically I may have been out of the country, but for all these years I was always connected with my people in Bangladesh,” he said. “As soon as the opportunity came to serve my people, I came back.”

Rahman’s time in self-imposed exile in London, living with his wife and daughter in the suburb of Kingston, is said by associates to have mellowed him. His experiences of daily British life have also left a mark, from his push for more tolerance in Bangladeshi politics to his determination to introduce weekly bin collections in the country.

Many in Bangladesh say they cannot forget the corruption that flourished under his mother during the last BNP regime between 2001 and 2006. Rahman did not dispute that “mistakes” had been made by his party in the past. “I won’t deny it. If we do that, it won’t help anything,” he said.

Although Rahman did not serve an official role in the previous regime, he was seen as an undue influence and in a leaked 2008 diplomatic cable he was described as “a symbol of kleptocratic government.”

He was jailed in 2007 as part of an anti-corruption crackdown by a military-backed caretaker government on charges he denies. In 2008, he was released to seek medical treatment in London, after being tortured so badly in prison that he was taken to the plane in a wheelchair.

During Hasina’s subsequent 15-year rule, he was convicted of a series of terrorism and corruption charges, which he alleged were politically motivated to keep him out of Bangladesh. In 2024, after Hasina’s fall, the courts overturned his convictions and finally freed him to return home.

“It’s been more than 18 years and they have failed to provide anything,” Rahman said. “Don’t you think this is good enough, long enough to prove that I did nothing wrong?”

Yet not everyone in Bangladesh cheered Rahman’s return. Both his parents were Bangladeshi prime ministers and to many he is just the next generation of dynastic politicians, continuing the stranglehold two families have had over Bangladesh since independence in 1971 and which many hoped would end the July uprising.

Even if the BNP wins a significant majority in the election, analysts have stressed that the resurgence of the Islamist Jamaat e-Islami party and their Islamist alliance – parties banned under Hasina – could pose major challenges to the BNP and Bangladesh’s secularism in the future.

Jamaat e-Islami, along with allies who follow even more hardline Islamist politics, all believe in the introduction of sharia law and are likely to get the largest vote share in their history and form a formidable opposition.

Jamaat e-Islami’s leader has already been accused of regressive policies and controversial views on women’s rights in the home and workplace. Human rights groups have also raised the alarm about a recent rise in moral policing of women, with incidents such as girls being prevented from playing football and the enforcement of modest clothing and headscarves.

Rahman admitted there were “some extremist people who try to do these things”, but he said it had “no relationship with Islam or religion”. Instead, he attributed it to the “absence of democracy … People were not allowed to express themselves for so long, it built up frustration and in some cases extremism.”

He maintained that the rise of radical Islamic politics was not a threat to the plurality of Bangladesh. “If we are able to practice democracy, if we can create jobs for young people and the opportunity to have a decent life, I believe people will get away from these kinds of thoughts.”

One of the biggest geopolitical challenges facing the new government of Bangladesh is rebuilding relations with its neighbor India. Under Hasina, India was Bangladesh’s closest ally, but ties have frayed badly since her government fell and have become outwardly hostile in recent months.

Rahman admitted that there were “issues” with India and he would only want a “relationship of mutual respect, mutual understanding”.

Asked whether India and Bangladesh could rebuild a friendship while Delhi continued to give safe haven to Hasina and hundreds of her party members, Rahman was coy. “It depends,” he said. “It should also be on them.”