ISAS Insights

The Bangladeshi is an intensely political person. It is his, or, as is somewhat more apt in Bangladesh given the gender of its leadership, her historical heritage. This extrapolation is easily derived from behaviour-pattern dating way back to Bengal's past. Unsurprisingly, therefore, elections in Bangladesh generate considerable heat and dust! This January the nation of nearly 160 million entered its election year. The government, a 14-party coalition led by the Awami League (AL) and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has now completed exactly four years in office. The timeline for election would be anytime this year starting October. In parliamentary systems, it is the government's prerogative to call for elections even before the expiry of its term (in this case, five years).