{"id":50287,"date":"2025-10-30T06:12:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T06:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southasianwire.com\/wire\/?p=50287"},"modified":"2025-10-30T06:12:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T06:12:18","slug":"exiled-bangladesh-leader-hasina-urges-boycott-warns-of-deep-divisions-ahead-of-2026-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southasianwire.com\/wire\/2025\/10\/30\/exiled-bangladesh-leader-hasina-urges-boycott-warns-of-deep-divisions-ahead-of-2026-polls","title":{"rendered":"Exiled Bangladesh Leader Hasina Urges Boycott, Warns of Deep Divisions Ahead of 2026 Polls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bangladesh\u2019s fugitive former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has warned that barring her Awami League party from next year\u2019s elections will deepen political divisions and trigger a mass voter boycott.<\/p>\n<p>Now exiled in India, the 78-year-old former leader is being tried in absentia for crimes against humanity, following her ouster in August 2024 after a student-led uprising that the United Nations says left up to 1,400 people dead amid violent crackdowns.<\/p>\n<p>The interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has pledged to hold elections in February 2026, but under amendments to the antiterrorism act, it has banned the Awami League, citing national security concerns and ongoing war crimes investigations into senior party figures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe ban on the Awami League is not only unjust, it is self-defeating,\u201d Hasina said in emailed comments to Reuters published Wednesday. \u201cMillions of people support the Awami League, so as things stand, they will not vote. You cannot disenfranchise millions of people if you want a political system that works.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For decades, Bangladesh\u2019s politics have been dominated by the Awami League and its main rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), in a country of more than 126 million registered voters. The BNP boycotted the 2024 election, with its top leaders jailed or in exile.<\/p>\n<p>Human Rights Watch has denounced the ban on the Awami League as \u201cdraconian,\u201d warning it undermines pluralism and the credibility of the upcoming polls.<\/p>\n<p>With the Awami League sidelined, the BNP is widely expected to lead next year\u2019s vote, while Jamaat-e-Islami, the country\u2019s largest Islamist party, has been gaining momentum.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are not asking Awami League voters to support other parties,\u201d Hasina told Reuters. \u201cWe still hope common sense will prevail and we will be allowed to contest the election ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bangladesh\u2019s fugitive former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has warned that barring her Awami League party from next year\u2019s elections will deepen political divisions and trigger a mass voter boycott. Now exiled in India, the 78-year-old former leader is being tried in absentia for crimes against humanity, following her ouster in August 2024 after a student-led &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,26],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-50287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headline","category-south-asia","tag-top-story"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Exiled Bangladesh Leader Hasina Urges Boycott, Warns of Deep Divisions Ahead of 2026 Polls - South Asian Wire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southasianwire.com\/wire\/2025\/10\/30\/exiled-bangladesh-leader-hasina-urges-boycott-warns-of-deep-divisions-ahead-of-2026-polls\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exiled Bangladesh Leader Hasina Urges Boycott, Warns of Deep Divisions Ahead of 2026 Polls - South Asian Wire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bangladesh\u2019s fugitive former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has warned that barring her Awami League party from next year\u2019s elections will deepen political divisions and trigger a mass voter boycott. 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