Amid growing public and political pressure for fresh elections in Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus on Wednesday announced that the next national elections could be held anytime between December this year and June 2026.
Speaking during his official trip to Japan, Yunus made the announcement while addressing a public gathering in Tokyo.
His remarks come on the same day when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) held a massive rally in Dhaka, demanding the restoration of what they described as the “political rights of the youth.”
In his address, Yunus explained the timeline and highlighted that the government has been working on electoral and governance reforms, and depending on the pace of those reforms, elections could be held as early as December 2025 or, at the latest, by June 2026.
“When elections take place an elected government takes over responsibility and we hand it over to them. People are insisting to tell them when the elections would be because the politicians are very impatient, to get to their seats of power. So I have been promising them for some time. It could be in December this year or at the latest June of 2026, so six months gap, depending on how fast we can do the reforms,” Yunus said.
“If the reforms are slow and accomplish little then we have a longer time. And the longer time cannot continue endlessly. Must finish it up by June 2026. So the sis the timeline we are working on,” he added.
The statements as BNP staged large-scale rallies across multiple cities, including the capital, Dhaka, to press their demand for national elections to be held by December.
BNP Acting Chairperson Tarique Rahman issued a stern warning to the interim government, urging it not to postpone the election timeline.
“I often make a point that bears repeating: reforming individual mindsets is far more important than reforming texts or institutions on paper. After all, the constitution of North Korea proclaims the country to be the ‘Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’. The words may be there, but it is adherence, not articulation, that defines democratic integrity,” Rahman said in his post on X, formerly Twitter.