To the outside world, Tarique Rahman’s return home on Thursday after 17 years in exile may be projected as the homecoming of a saviour for a poll-bound Bangladesh, which is in turmoil. The son of two-time Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and slain President Ziaur Rahman, Tarique’s re-entry into politics is being closely watched. Yet, his road to power is fraught with uncertainty.
To the outside world, today’s homecoming after 17 years of exile may project Tarique Rahman—the son of two-time Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and slain President Ziaur Rahman—as a saviour of sorts for a poll-bound Bangladesh in turmoil, but his path to victory remains uncertain. Diverse forces are at work, including interim Chief Advisor Mohammed Yunus, who is backed by student leaders whose protests forced long-term premier, Sheikh Hasina, out of power. Many of them have ideological leanings close to radical Islamists who currently have full play and lead the National Citizens’ Party (NCP).
Floated with his blessings, the party is Yunus’s political shield. With its Islamist orientation, it is unlikely to take kindly to the return of Rahman, whose Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) boasts a nationalist ethos of the freedom movement bequeathed by its founder. Despite that, the BNP had aligned with Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest mainstream Islamist Party, again, a thorn in the path of those who want the elections to cement their role following the July 2024 protest movement.
Tarique Rahman remains a controversial figure as a parallel power centre during Begum Zia’s tenure as Prime Minister from 2001 to 2006. Besides corruption charges, he was behind Bangladesh’s Islamist radicalisation and the emergence of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami (HUJI).
Tarique was prosecuted for the August 21, 2004, grenade attack on the opposition Awami League’s rally to protest terrorism. 24 rallyists, including senior party leader Ivy Rahman, were killed. Hasina escaped but was left with ear impairment. Although Begum Zia was persecuted for many years by Hasina in subsequent periods, records indicate that Tarique’s own persecution occurred solely during the two-year, army-backed caretaker regime from 2006 to 2008, which had reneged on holding elections. He was jailed, convicted, and allegedly tortured. After his release, he migrated to London in 2008.
His supporters say that this was part of the incumbent government’s gambit. Known as the “minus-two” strategy, it was meant to push both Khaleda and Hasina out of the country, but it failed, forcing elections at the end of 2008. Hasina, who won those elections, ruled until 2024.
In post-Hasina Bangladesh, there have been reports that Tarique is distrusted by sections of the army backing Yunus. In political terms, however, as his mother Khaleda is seriously ailing, Tarique is seen as the inheritor of a political legacy that directly counters that of Hasina and the Awami League. The rivalry goes back to the freedom movement. This suits the present rulers, who want to keep Hasina and the AL out of the electoral arena. As it worked hard to ensure medical treatment for Begum Zia while she lay on a ventilator, the Yunus government has also gone out of its way to smooth Tarique’s return, arranging a mass welcome. With this boost, Tarique can be expected to launch an organised campaign by a party enthused by his return. Helped by a well-oiled election machinery, possibly with foreign funds from quarters that would want Bangladesh to stabilise politically and economically, he can hope to wrest power. Much would depend upon how he translates his personal charisma, having been away from the political scene, into votes. Yet, it may not be easy.
Soon after Hasina’s ouster, the BNP was seen as the largest mainstream party poised to take power. The exclusion of the rival Awami League, still the country’s largest, from the election arena doubly made it so. However, as 2025 draws to a close with elections just two months away, that advantage looks less certain. Jamaat-e-Islami, once a BNP ally, has consolidated its position. Yet Jamaat itself faces challenges from the student-led BCP, which distrusts all mainstream parties and seeks to perpetuate its influence from the protest movement. The sympathy factor generated by the killing of one of its leaders, Shareef Osama Hadi, in a brutal attack earlier this month, in a violence-filled poll atmosphere, strengthens its role. But this divides the Islamist Phalanx.
Tarique still has the aces in an election that remains largely a one-horse race since it does not have to counter the Awami League.But he will have to field provocations from traditional rival Hasina from across the border, resurgence from the Islamists, who seek their place under the political sun for the first time and, as it happens, in any party that is sure to do well, internal dissensions.