NEW DELHI: Ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said that millions of Awami League supporters will boycott next year’s national election after the party was barred from contesting. Speaking to Reuters from exile in New Delhi on Wednesday, Hasina, 78, said she would not return to Bangladesh under any government formed after an election that excludes her party. She fled to India in August 2024 following a deadly student-led uprising that toppled her 15-year rule.
An interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been governing Bangladesh since her removal and has pledged to hold general elections in February 2025.
“The ban on the Awami League is not only unjust, it is self-defeating,” Hasina said in her first media comments since her ouster. “Millions of people support our party, and they will not vote if we are excluded. You cannot disenfranchise millions and expect a functioning democracy.”
Bangladesh has more than 126 million registered voters. The Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have long dominated the political landscape, and the BNP is widely expected to win the upcoming polls.
The Election Commission suspended the Awami League’s registration in May, while the Yunus-led government banned all political party activities, citing national security concerns and ongoing war crimes investigations into senior Awami League leaders.
“We are not asking our supporters to back other parties,” Hasina said. “We still hope reason will prevail and we will be allowed to contest.”
Hasina, credited with transforming Bangladesh’s economy but accused of human rights abuses and suppressing dissent, won a fourth consecutive term in 2024 in an election boycotted by the opposition.
She is now facing charges of crimes against humanity at the International Crimes Tribunal over the violent crackdown on student protesters between July and August 2024. A verdict is expected on November 13.
A United Nations report estimates that up to 1,400 people were killed and thousands injured during those protests — the deadliest unrest since Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War.
Prosecutors allege that Hasina oversaw abductions, torture, and extrajudicial killings through secret detention centres operated by security forces. Hasina has denied the accusations, calling the proceedings “politically motivated.”
“These are kangaroo courts, and the verdicts are predetermined,” she told Reuters. “I was denied any real opportunity to defend myself.”
Despite the turmoil, Hasina said the Awami League would eventually return to play a legitimate role in Bangladesh’s future — in government or in opposition — and that her family does not have to lead it.
“It’s not about me or my family,” she said. “For Bangladesh to move forward, there must be a return to constitutional rule and political stability.”
Hasina, whose father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and three brothers were killed in a 1975 military coup, said she lives freely in Delhi but remains cautious because of her family’s history.
A Reuters journalist recently spotted her walking quietly through Delhi’s Lodhi Garden, accompanied by two personal security guards.
“I would love to go home — if the government there is legitimate and the rule of law truly prevails,” she said.
Her departure initially triggered attacks on Awami League workers, though the streets have since remained calm. However, sporadic clashes erupted earlier this month during the signing of a state reform charter.
