Politics
Younger Bangladesh voters primed for first post-Hasina election
DHAKA: Millions of young Bangladeshis will vote for the first time on Thursday in a landmark election to determine the country’s leadership following a 2024 student-led uprising that ended former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic rule.
Young people aged 18 to 27 make up 44% of the country’s 129 million voters, many of whom say they never voted during Hasina’s 15-year iron-fisted tenure.
Elections under the ousted prime minister’s rule were marred by allegations of widespread rigging and bans on opposition parties.
Faijullah Wasif, 33, a university official preparing to cast his first ballot, said he didn’t vote while Hasina was in power because he felt it wouldn’t make a difference.
“It was mainly because of fear and anxiety that I didn’t go,” he said. “I did not even feel interested.”
The demographic bulge of younger voters has forced parties to recalibrate their campaigns and messages.
The digital battleground has become central to the campaign, and parties have invested heavily in online outreach, from Facebook videos to TikTok reels.
‘Excited’
This election, Hasina’s former ruling Awami League has been barred.
Instead, the parties once crushed under her rule are running — the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies, and a coalition led by Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest religious party.
Ashfah Binte Latif, 21, a student at Dhaka University, said her parents had told her stories of past elections, pre-Hasina, when polling day was celebrated like a festival.
“Now that we have managed to change the system, I am very excited,” she said.
The National Citizen Party (NCP), formed by the student leaders who spearheaded the uprising, have allied with Jamaat-e-Islami.
Latif said she expected more from the young student leaders, but she is still eager for change.
“We expected young people to lead us — and in many ways, they did,” she said. “If they fail, it’s a failure for all of the young.”
The spark that ignited the 2024 unrest started on university campuses by students opposed to a quota system in the civil service, which they said excluded them from jobs.
‘Respect’
A year and a half later, Bangladesh’s economy remains fragile, and graduates still struggle to land their first job.
Election expert Md Abdul Alim, a former member of Bangladesh’s election reform commission, said he expected a strong youth turnout.
“These young voters will carry this sense of deprivation with them to the polls, and they will vote,” he said.
Of around 2,000 candidates vying for the 350 seats — some 1,400 standing for the first time — more than 600 are aged 44 or below, according to statistics from the electoral commission.
Wasif, the university official, believes the fresh faces will benefit Bangladesh.
“Our trust in young people is very strong, and our hopes are high,” Wasif said.
“Since young people brought about this change, I believe that it is through them that Bangladesh’s political culture will undergo a radical transformation.”
Latif hopes it will usher in a more democratic leadership.
“A government that won’t see dissenting voices as enemies, but will respect them,” Latif said.
- Over 3,200 events planned across all 50 states of United States.
- Organisers expect more protests in smaller communities this time.
- Protests driven by backlash against Iran conflict, Trump’s policies.
Massive protests against President Donald Trump kicked off Saturday across the United States and beyond, as millions of people vent fury over what they see as his authoritarian bent and other forms of cruel, law-trampling governance.
It is the third time in less than a year that Americans have taken to the streets as part of a grassroots movement called “No Kings,” the most vocal and visual conduit for opposition to Trump since he began his second term in January 2025.
Now they have something new to fume over — the war against Iran that Trump launched alongside Israel, with ever-shifting goals and timelines for completion.
The anti-Trump mood has spilled beyond US borders, with rallies Saturday in European cities including Amsterdam, Madrid and Rome.
US protests began in several cities, including Atlanta, where thousands of people gathered in a park to decry authoritarianism.
One man at the rally held a sign that read “We Are Losing Our Democracy.”
In the Michigan town of West Bloomfield, near Detroit, people braved below-freezing temperatures to protest.
Record numbers expected
The first “No Kings” nationwide protest day came last June on Trump´s 79th birthday and coincided with a military parade he organised in Washington. Several million people turned out, from New York to San Francisco.
The second such protest, in October, drew an estimated seven million protesters, according to organisers.
The goal now is to bring out even more people Saturday, as Trump´s approval rating sinks below 40% and midterm elections loom in November, when Trump´s Republicans could lose control of both chambers of Congress.
Just as Trump is worshipped by many in his “Make America Great Again” movement, he is disliked with equal passion on the other side of America’s wide political chasm.
Foes bemoan his penchant for ruling by executive decree, his use of the Justice Department to prosecute opponents, his apparent obsession with fossil fuels and climate change denial.
They also dislike his gutting of racial and gender diversity programs, and his taste for flexing US military power after campaigning as a man of peace.
“Since the last time we marched, this administration has dragged us deeper into war,” said Naveed Shah of Common Defence, a veterans association connected to the “No Kings” movement.
“At home, we’ve watched citizens killed in the streets by militarised forces. We´ve seen families torn apart and immigrant communities targeted. All of it done in the name of one man trying to rule like a king.”
Springsteen in Minneapolis
Organisers say more than 3,000 rallies are planned, in major cities and in suburbs and rural areas — even in the Alaskan town of Kotzebue, above the Arctic circle.
Minnesota is a key focal point, months after becoming ground zero for the national debate over Trump´s violent immigration crackdown.
Legendary rocker Bruce Springsteen, a fierce critic of the president, is scheduled to perform his song “Streets of Minneapolis” in the twin city of St. Paul, the capital of the northern state.
Springsteen wrote and recorded the protest ballad in just 24 hours in memory of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two US citizens shot dead by federal agents during January protests against Trump´s immigration offensive.
What began in 2025 as a simple day of defiance has mushroomed into a “No Kings” movement of national resistance to Trump.
Organisers say two-thirds of those who plan to rally Saturday do not live in big cities, which in America are often Democratic strongholds — a data point that is up sharply since the last protest.
- Zelenskiy continuing Gulf visit after arriving in Riyadh on Thursday.
- Qatar says Doha, Kyiv have signed defence cooperation agreement.
- UAE, Ukraine earlier agreed to cooperate on security and defence.
Ukraine on Saturday agreed to cooperate on defence with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy travelled to both countries amid escalating tensions in the region.
Qatar’s defence ministry said in a statement on Saturday that Doha and Kyiv have signed a defence cooperation agreement, which includes the exchange of expertise in countering missiles and unmanned aerial systems.
Zelenskiy had earlier been to the UAE and met President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as the two countries agreed to cooperate in the fields of security and defence.
“Our teams will finalise the details,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram app with reference to the UAE discussions.
Ukraine, which now has years of experience shooting down Russian drones and missiles, was close to clinching several security agreements to counter Iranian attacks, its foreign minister Andrii Sybiha had told Reuters on Friday.
The US-Israeli war on Iran has killed more than 2,000 people, upended global markets and spurred Iranian retaliatory strikes that have effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz and targeted several countries across the Gulf with missiles and drones.
Zelenskiy had first arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday where the two countries also signed an agreement on defence cooperation.
- After Oli’s arrest, supporters staged protest rallies.
- Oli had resigned after fatal protests last September.
- Police say Oli and Lekhak will be brought to court Sunday.
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s former prime minister, KP Sharma Oli, was arrested on Saturday as police investigate whether he was negligent in failing to prevent dozens of deaths in a crackdown on Gen Z-led anti-corruption protests last September, said officials.
Oli’s arrest, which his lawyer said was illegal and sparked protests by supporters who clashed with police, followed rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah’s swearing in as prime minister on Friday and a recommendation by a panel investigating violence during the protests that he should be prosecuted for negligence.
His former home minister, Ramesh Lekhak, was also arrested.
76 people were killed last September during a police crackdown and arson and violent unrest during the protests, which led to Oli’s resignation.
After his arrest on Saturday, supporters staged protest rallies and clashed with police who tried to stop them burning tyres near the prime minister’s office. Police lobbed a teargas shell and used batons to break up the protests, injuring one person, witnesses said.
Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) called his arrest illegal and said it was an act of “revenge”. It demanded his immediate release and said more protests were planned for Sunday.
Shankar Pokhrel, a senior party official, told reporters that protest notes against the arrest would be handed to the government in all 77 districts of the country on Sunday.
Home Minister Sudan Gurung dismissed the criticism, saying on Facebook: “It is the beginning of justice. The country will take a new direction now.”
Election defeat
Oli was prime minister four times between 2015 and 2025 but never served a full five-year term. In 2020, he published a new political map including in it a small stretch of disputed land controlled by India, giving him a popularity boost in Nepal.
His popularity did not last, and he was beaten by Shah in his home constituency in an election this month, his second defeat since the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1990. Anger over the deaths in September’s protests helped Shah’s Rastriya Swatantra Party win the election by a landslide.
The panel investigating last September’s violence held Oli and Lekhak responsible for not taking any action to stop hours of firing on the protesters by police.
Police spokesperson Om Adhikari said Oli and Lekhak would be brought to court on Sunday.
Oli, 74, who has had two kidney transplants, has been transferred to a hospital from the police office where he was first taken, witnesses said.
His lawyer, Tikaram Bhattarai, told Reuters that the arrest was unwarranted and would be challenged in the Supreme Court.
“They have said it (the arrest) is for investigation. It is illegal and improper because there is no risk of him fleeing or avoiding questioning,” he said.
Lekhak and his lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.
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