Bangladesh’s National Citizen Party forms a seat-sharing alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami for the 2025 polls, sparking internal dissent and concerns over ideology
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party has announced a seat-sharing agreement with a political grouping formed by students who spearheaded last year’s uprising.
Jamaat-e-Islami said on Sunday it reached the agreement with the student-led National Citizen Party following marathon talks. The party regards the February 12 vote as its biggest opportunity in decades, following the toppling of prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024.
Islamist movements crushed under Hasina’s 15-year autocratic rule have regrouped since her fall. Jamaat leader Shafiqur Rahman also announced a separate agreement with the small Liberal Democratic Party.
“We were eight parties in the alliance. Now two new political parties have joined us,” he said at a press conference.
The Jamaat-led alliance is dominated by fringe Islamist political parties, most of which held only a handful of seats in previous parliaments. The resurgence of Islamist forces has sparked concern among religious minorities including Sufi Muslims and Hindus, who account for less than 10% of the population.
Ahead of the tie-up, at least 30 NCP members wrote to party chief Nahid Islam opposing the plan to join hands. In a letter Saturday, they said NCP’s ideology and its commitment to democratic values contradicted those of the Jamaat.
Tasnim Jara, who was looking to run on the NCP ticket, quit on Saturday, followed on Sunday by another aspiring candidate, Tasnuva Jabin. Senior party figure Samantha Sharmin warned in a social media post Sunday that the party would have to pay a “high price” for its alliance with Islamists.
The NCP was formed in March, promising centrist politics that would be “democratic, egalitarian, and people-oriented”. But Islam defended the alliance, saying it was “not an ideological agreement, but an electoral alliance”.
“To ensure a free, fair, and competitive election, and to prevent the return of hegemonic forces, the NCP felt the need for broader unity,” he said at a media briefing.
He also promised to pursue an agenda focused on “reforms, justice, and opposition to hegemony and corruption”. With Hasina’s Awami League barred from the election, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is widely tipped to win the polls.
