Bangladesh has a population of 176m.
Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League ruled for 16 years before being ousted by a massive uprising in August 2024, during which some 1,400 people died as she clung to power. She fled to India. A white paper alleged that around $16bn was siphoned annually during her regime. Cases against her include charges of murder, abduction and genocide; she denies all charges.
Muhammad Yunus, a microcredit pioneer and Nobel peace laureate, became interim leader after the uprising. He set up commissions to provide ideas for reform in elections, the judiciary and the constitution, staffed with experts from civil society and academia. A national consensus commission, vice-chaired by Ali Riaz, compiled 166 recommendations from these bodies and put them on a spreadsheet to which 35 political parties contributed. The consensus commission aims to produce a "July Charter" that will allow elections to take place.
Among the reforms already implemented is an independent process for appointing judges to the High Court. The most controversial commission recommendation proposed changes to Islamic inheritance law giving women greater rights, which sparked mass protests by Islamist parties.
Yunus's caretaker government has stabilised the economy and worked on constitutional reforms including a proposed new upper house of parliament and ten-year term limits for prime ministers, both to be put to a referendum on election day.
A general election was set for February 12th 2026—the first competitive vote in Bangladesh since 2008, and the first since Gen-Z protesters overthrew Sheikh Hasina's regime 18 months earlier. On May 12th 2025 the election commission suspended the Awami League's registration, banning it from contesting elections, citing "national security" concerns. In theory the ruling is temporary, pending court cases that might take years. The Awami League remains the first choice of 14% of decided voters, likely an undercount. Nearly 150 parties have signed up to compete. Among them is the National Citizen Party (NCP), a student-led group that emerged from the protests, though it polls at only 5%.
The two main contenders are the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Tarique Rahman, which leads with 42% of decided voters; and Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party unbanned after the revolution, which polls at 32%. Jamaat-e-Islami's rise has caused panic among the urban middle class: it fielded no female candidates and one of its leaders suggested limiting women's working hours. Business leaders and liberals back the BNP, viewing the alternative as potentially "Taliban-lite".
On February 12th 2026 voters went to the polls in Bangladesh's first competitive election since 2008. The BNP mopped up over two-thirds of the 300-seat parliament. The vote was mostly peaceful, despite earlier fears of mass violence. Close to 70% of voters also backed "yes" in a constitutional referendum arming the country with sturdier checks and balances, including prime-ministerial term limits and the creation of a new upper house with powers to check the lower one. Turnout was a middling 60%, suggesting many Awami League supporters stayed home after the ban on their party.
Five days after the vote, Tarique Rahman was sworn in as prime minister in an open-air ceremony—a gesture of transparency. The BNP insists, unpersuasively, that courts alone can decide when and under what conditions the AL might return. The party is all too aware that the new constitutional checks and balances would now constrain itself; it quietly dispatched operatives to campaign for a "no" and is already finding excuses to cherry-pick among the reforms.
The new finance minister, Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, says his to-do list includes trimming red tape, upping the country's abysmal 7% tax-to-GDP ratio, improving the cost and ease of doing business and charming fund managers from Hong Kong to New York.
Jamaat-e-Islami made history by becoming the country's main opposition with about a third of all votes—the biggest surprise of the election. Under its leader Shafiqur Rahman, it played down its religious roots, branding itself as the party of change and anti-corruption. Its student wing had won all the big student-union elections in late 2025 by running study sessions and welfare groups rather than preaching.
Relations with India have worsened since the 2024 uprising. Indian media have played up incidents of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh; Bangladeshis are angry at India's willingness to shelter Sheikh Hasina, who was sentenced to death in absentia and is still living in a Delhi bungalow as India's guest. The Indian government would like to improve relations, but its own media—and low-level BJP functionaries—make it difficult.
In April 2025 India cancelled a trans-shipment facility that had allowed Bangladeshi goods to be sent abroad from Indian airports. The BNP strikes a more pragmatic tone than the sometimes prickly interim government. But on water-sharing, border security and shady business deals brokered under Sheikh Hasina, it wants to renegotiate terms. Bangladeshi diplomats have adopted a new go-to word: "dignity" must return to the relationship. "Until August 2024, Bangladesh was almost like a client of India," complains one retired ambassador.
During the 2026 T20 Cricket World Cup, hosted in India, the ICC excluded Bangladesh from the tournament after the BCCI forced an IPL team to drop a Bangladeshi player and Bangladesh argued India could not guarantee its players' security.
Bangladesh is the world's second-largest producer of ready-made garments. Around two-thirds of garment-factory workers are women. The industry has pulled millions of women into the workforce since the 1980s, spearheading the country's economic growth. America is the largest single-country buyer. The country has a $6bn trade deficit with America.
Workers who lose their jobs struggle to find new ones: most leave their villages for factories in their late teens and spend years repeating mechanical tasks without gaining new skills.
Bangladesh faces a "reciprocal tariff" of 35% under Donald Trump. Since his tariff announcement, American buyers such as American Eagle and Walmart have put millions of dollars-worth of orders on hold. Over 800 businesses in the country will be affected by the tariffs. The government has been ramping up imports from America and ordered 25 Boeing aircraft to convince the Trump administration to lower the tariff.
Government revenue is just 7% of GDP, compared with 20% across Asia. Bangladesh is set to graduate from the UN's group of "least developed countries", which will mean losing advantages in trade and concessionary loans.
Growth is expected to slow from 4.2% to 3.9% in the year ending in June 2025, according to the Asian Development Bank. Inflation has dipped from nearly 12% in July 2024 to 9% in May 2025. The government has sought to clear bad loans from the banks and started hunting for billions believed to have been siphoned abroad by the previous government. Both the IMF and ADB have approved multi-billion-dollar loans. Textiles remain the pillar of the economy; infrastructure is woeful and job creation insufficient. America is the biggest market for Bangladeshi exports.
In March 2025 Yunus made his first big bilateral trip to China, signing several agreements. Reports suggest Bangladesh may buy Chinese J10C and JF17 fighter jets—the same aircraft used by Pakistan in its conflict with India in May 2025. On June 19th 2025 China, Pakistan and Bangladesh held their first-ever trilateral summit. A survey found 75% of Bangladeshis view China positively, while only 11% say they like India.
Bangladesh hosts more than 1m Rohingya refugees in camps near Cox's Bazar, close to the border with Myanmar. Most arrived in 2017 after Myanmar's army launched attacks on the Rohingyas in Rakhine state. Since the start of 2024, more than 150,000 additional people have fled fighting in Rakhine between Myanmar's junta and the Arakan Army, the biggest such influx for years. About 40% of children in the camps are malnourished; some 25% of women suffer from anaemia. Bangladesh bans the construction of permanent structures in the camps and forbids Rohingyas from working. Armed Rohingya groups operating from the camps have been accused of running kidnapping and extortion rackets; they have launched raids back into Myanmar to attack the Arakan Army. America, long the biggest provider of cash for the camps, slashed aid during the dismantling of USAID. The UN says supporting the Rohingyas will cost around $934m in 2025, of which only about one-third has been raised.
Dhaka, the capital, has 37m people according to UN data released in November 2025 that accepts the reality of urban sprawl, making it the world's third most populous city after Jakarta and Delhi. Dhaka ranks third from last in the Economist Intelligence Unit's liveability index, with only Damascus and Tripoli behind it. It is the world's third most congested city. The city is run by two municipal corporations, a national development authority, several ministries and dozens of different agencies individually responsible for things such as water, sewage and transport. A mayor of Dhaka North City Corporation once complained that he lacked the authority to deal with 80% of the problems that affect his city, including traffic and flooding. By 2050 Dhaka is expected to add another 10m people.
Rosatom, Russia's state-owned nuclear firm, is building two reactors in Bangladesh that will add about 10% to the country's generating capacity. Russia is reportedly lending around 90% of the estimated $12.6bn cost. The project gives Russia a long-term foothold in South Asia: it can take up to 80 years from starting construction to decommissioning a nuclear reactor, binding clients into agreements covering maintenance, spare parts, training and technical assistance for decades. Researchers from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs assess Bangladesh as having a "high" dependence on Russian-built nuclear power, making it vulnerable to supply disruptions and other malign influence.
Battery-powered rickshaws—known locally as "Bangla Teslas"—have upended urban transport. There are an estimated 4m e-rickshaws in Bangladeshi cities, up from 200,000 in 2016, perhaps the world's biggest informal electric-vehicle fleet. Cycle-powered rickshaws, long a popular mode of transport, are recognised by the UN as part of Bangladesh's "intangible cultural heritage". Around 2007 some drivers began retrofitting their machines with imported Chinese electric motors and lead-acid batteries; nowadays small informal-sector firms build and sell e-rickshaws from scratch.
E-rickshaw drivers can earn around 1,500 taka a day ($12.50), compared with barely 200 taka for pedal-rickshaw pullers, because the machines can reach 40kph—four times faster. But the vehicles are often flimsy and accidents are rising. A local NGO estimates 870 fatal e-rickshaw crashes occurred in 2024. Their lead-acid batteries are melted down by unlicensed recyclers, releasing fumes that contribute to lead poisoning; UNICEF reckons about 35m Bangladeshi children have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood. Tiger New Energy, a startup, offers lithium batteries by subscription, allowing drivers to swap a run-down battery for a freshly charged one at kiosks. In June 2025 the interim government prepared draft rules to tighten speed limits and require registration, though similar regulation has sputtered before.
In October 2025 thousands of Bangladeshis took to the streets to protest against India's influence over the flow of the Teesta river, a tributary of the Brahmaputra (known as the Jamuna in Bangladesh). Riparian Bangladeshis complain that India gives no warning when it releases torrents of water from existing dams, causing havoc downstream. Nepal recently started selling hydropower to Bangladesh using India's grid.
According to one survey, nearly 60% of those polled believe that law and order have not improved since the regime change. Protests have become routine, with the most common demand being retribution against the Awami League.
No one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish.