Dhaka is bracing for a pivotal moment as Bangladesh heads to the polls on February 12, with the world’s eyes fixed on the outcome. In a scathing critique just hours before voting begins, exiled former ambassador Mohammad Harun Al Rashid has branded the upcoming election as the ugliest in the nation’s history.
Speaking exclusively to the Trinko Centre for Strategic Studies in Sri Lanka, Rashid pulled no punches. He accused interim government chief advisor Muhammad Yunus of repackaging failures as successes to cling to power. ‘Yunus calls everything beautiful, but this election will expose the ugliest face of Bangladesh’s history,’ Rashid declared. ‘He’s been doing this for too long—rebranding trash as treasure. This time, he won’t escape accountability.’
Rashid dismissed the process as no real election but a clash between two factions of the 2024 ‘Jihadi coalition’ that ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. On one side stands the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and allies, reminiscent ideologically of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Opposing them is the radical Jamaat-e-Islami and its partners, akin to Hamas in Palestine, he argued.
‘Neither upholds democratic values; both embody Islamist extremism,’ Rashid stated firmly. He alleged no genuine democratic party has been allowed to compete, with Yunus manipulating results to position himself at the next government’s core, favoring Jamaat and groups like the National Citizen Party (NCP), whose cadres fueled 2024’s jihadist violence under the guise of the quota movement.
‘You can call it an election if you want. It’s not,’ he insisted. Addressing Bangladesh’s shift from a secular republic to a terror hotspot, Rashid lamented it as a blow not just to the nation but to 21st-century humanity. Yunus’s 18-month rule has demolished decades of progress, gutting Hasina-era economic gains, secular identity, and the moral legacy of the liberation war.
‘This isn’t mere political decline; it’s barbarism against civilization,’ he warned. Dismissing Yunus’s Western image as a liberal icon, Rashid called him a ‘con artist and international fraud,’ skilled at blinding the West with charisma and Nobel prestige.
As polls open, Rashid’s words cast a long shadow over Bangladesh’s democratic aspirations, raising urgent questions about the vote’s legitimacy and the country’s future trajectory.