Dhaka, Jun. 6, (dpa/GNA) – Bangladesh’s interim government has announced that the next general election in the politically turbulent South Asian country will be held in the first half of April next year.

“The election will be held on any day in the first half of April 2026,” Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus said in a televised address to the nation on Friday.

He added that the Election Commission would release a detailed road map for the polls at an appropriate time.

The announcement follows mounting pressure from opposition parties, who have been demanding a clear timeline for a democratic transition by December after the interim administration took over after violent uprising ousted the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s government in August last year.

Yunus, a Nobel peace laureate, has consistently stated that elections would be held between December this year and June 2026 as he took up a massive state reforms agenda after assuming office on August 8, 2024.

“I have repeatedly said the election will be held between December and June next year,” Yunus reiterated, saying that the government was taking necessary steps to ensure an environment conducive to a credible vote.

He stressed that one of the government’s primary responsibilities is to hold elections in a peaceful and inclusive atmosphere.

Yunus emphasized the importance of institutional reforms ahead of the election to ensure fairness, citing past elections under Hasina’s regime that were marred by widespread allegations of vote rigging.

Yunus said his government had assumed responsibility based on three mandates: reform, justice, and elections.

He was hopeful that meaningful progress would be made on reform and justice, especially the trial into alleged rights violations made by the previous regime during the uprising.

GNA

PDC