Nazmul ArifeenBangladesh will return to the polls on 12 February 2026, marking its first parliamentary election since the Gen-Z led mass uprisings that ousted the Awami League government in August 2024. This vote represents a pivotal moment not only for Bangladesh’s domestic political order but also for broader stability in South Asia and for U.S. priorities in democratic governance, regional security, and economic resilience in the Bay of Bengal. The stakes extend well beyond who wins. The credibility of the electoral process, the absence of violence or coercion, and the peaceful transfer of authority to an elected government will ultimately determine Bangladesh’s domestic legitimacy and its international standing.
For international community, the central objective should be to help ensure conditions that make the election credible, participatory, and free from interference. Two imperatives stand out. First, the transition of power must be anchored in an electoral process that is widely perceived as fair and procedurally sound. Second, civilian control must be reinforced by the armed forces’ clear non-intervention, supported by sustained international engagement. Failure on either front risks prolonged instability, reputational damage, and deeper political polarization, with spillover effects that could undermine regional cooperation and investor confidence.
Why the February 12 Election Matters
Bangladesh occupies a strategically significant position in the Indo-Pacific, with deep connections to U.S. supply chains, UN peacekeeping operations, and regional maritime security. A disputed or non-credible election would have far-reaching consequences beyond Dhaka. Investor uncertainty would rise, governance capacity would weaken, and authorities would be tempted to rely increasingly on coercive tools to manage dissent—further eroding legitimacy.
Bangladesh’s recent electoral history underscores a hard lesson: voting alone does not confer legitimacy. What matters is whether citizens believe the process is fair, whether opposition participation is meaningful, and whether outcomes are accepted as procedurally valid. Without that baseline trust, electoral contests become flashpoints rather than mechanisms for democratic resilience.
Building Credibility
A credible election hinges on transparent administration, genuine competition among participating parties, and public confidence that electoral institutions are not manipulated behind the scenes. In this regard, Dhaka’s invitation to observation missions from the European Union, the Commonwealth, the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, and other countries is a reassuring step. Pledges of unrestricted access to roughly 42,000 polling stations signal an awareness that oversight matters. High-quality international observation can reduce the risk of “mutual pessimism”—the fear that one side will cheat first—and instead foster “mutual optimism,” in which restraint is expected and reciprocated. However, by offering foreign observers’ accommodation and meals, the Election Commission blurs the line between scrutiny and sponsorship. This invites an avoidable conflict-of-interest narrative that will shadow any independent assessment. The interim government must demonstrate a credible commitment to ensuring that international observers are not merely present but vigilant, impartial, and procedurally independent, in order to avoid the shortcomings that undermined electoral credibility under previous Hasina-era elections.
Other warning signs also remain. Persistent intimidation of political rivals, a resurgence of intra-party killings, escalating extortion of small businesses, and rising mob violence—compounded by allegations of opaque rally permit permissions and contested candidate disqualifications—continue to undermine the electoral environment. In this context, the role of international observers remains indispensable and must be exercised with vigilance. Rather than conferring broad political assurances, international engagement should concentrate on specific procedural benchmarks: open media space, timely and transparent publication of polling-station-level results, and rapid, impartial adjudication of electoral complaints. These are the mechanics that convert formal elections into credible ones.
Impartial Bureaucracy and Judiciary
When it comes to holding a free and fair election, the judiciary and civilian bureaucracy play vital roles. Notably, under Hasina’s government, elections were manipulated through increasingly brazen tactics—one infamously involving ballots cast before election day, earning the label of a “Night Election.” In Bangladesh, bureaucratic officials are routinely deployed nationwide ahead of elections to administer polling and oversee vote counting. Prior to the most recent election, the Hasina government distributed a large sum of money to judicial magistrates, allocating funds for every official and polling station. However, there were no systems in place to monitor or verify how this large sum was spent. Such practices severely undermined bureaucratic neutrality. The risks remain acute, given that many of the same officials who oversaw past electoral manipulation remain in key operational roles. The impartiality of the bureaucracy is essential for ensuring the credibility of any election. The international community should be prepared to impose targeted punitive measures on individuals found responsible for misconduct in the upcoming election.
Security Force Non-Interference
The neutrality of the security forces is essential—not only for preserving the army’s public image, but also because of its widely-perceived role in influencing political outcomes. The most instructive precedent remains the “1/11” emergency of 2007-08, when military leaders engineered a two-year caretaker government, detained party elites, and rewrote electoral rules under the banner of anti-corruption. That episode illustrates a durable truth: once the military casts itself as a political arbiter, restoring political accountability becomes highly difficult.
Bangladeshi soldiers rightly take pride in their global peacekeeping record, yet the institution has grown increasingly entangled in bureaucratic and political power structures that extend far beyond traditional civil-military boundaries. Elite intelligence and law-enforcement units, operating with limited oversight, have played a particularly coercive role during Hasina’s rule—serving as instruments of surveillance, intimidation, and repression against political opponents and civil society.
Washington and its partners should therefore leave no ambiguity: the armed forces must only be deployed for strictly logistical and law enforcement support on election day. The presence of uniformed troops on polling day can have a calming effect on the public. Because they are deployed from barracks, they are not drawn from local communities and typically have no ties to local leaders—an advantage that helps insulate them from the political pressures the police often cannot escape. But this message will resonate only if it is communicated plainly and reinforced by credible consequences.
Managing the Risks of Electoral Violence
Electoral violence—whether driven by splinter Awami League loyalists, rival party thugs, or heavy-handed policing—would severely undermine the election’s legitimacy. But credibility can also be eroded without visible violence, through subtler forms of manipulation such as the partisan use of state resources and administrative bias. Bangladesh’s recent elections illustrate this danger: contests that appeared orderly and calm nevertheless lacked genuine competition and public trust.
Preventing violence requires more than post hoc sanctions. It demands a climate of deterrence and accountability that reaches all actors in advance. The international community can help cultivate that environment by mobilizing donors to support Bangladesh’s domestic watchdog ecosystem, including election observers, legal-aid networks, and independent fact-checking initiatives. When intimidation or coercion occurs, it must be documented, verified, and challenged in real time.
Diplomatic messaging should emphasize a simple, verifiable standard: a credible election is one in which voters can cast their ballots freely and trust that those votes are counted accurately and determine the outcome. Linking future economic and security cooperation to that standard—while signaling that individuals, not abstract institutions, will face consequences for orchestrating misconduct—offers international partners their strongest leverage. The purpose is not external control, but to signal that long-term cooperation is anchored in political processes that are peaceful, inclusive, and broadly perceived as legitimate.
A Test of Preventive Diplomacy
Bangladesh’s election will not draw widespread attention in the United States. Yet it offers an opportunity for constructive diplomatic engagement in support of democratic processes. If Dhaka delivers an election that citizens can audit, keeps the military out of politics, and contains street violence, the payoff will be years of predictable governance and closer alignment with U.S. strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific. If it fails, the costs—political, humanitarian, and strategic—will be far-reaching, echoing from congressional hearings to corporate boardrooms, and across an increasingly competitive Indo-Pacific. The leverage to shape outcomes still exists, but it is time-bound. As February 12 approaches, the responsibility—and the opportunity—rests as not only with Dhaka but also with its international partners.
