Tarique Rahman has lost his voice. That isn’t ideal for the aspiring leader of Bangladesh, the South Asian nation of 175 million. It’s also tinged with irony since, as his homeland’s de facto opposition leader, Rahman’s speeches had been banned from local media for a decade by autocratic former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
“My body is getting adjusted to this local weather,” says Rahman, speaking to TIME in the garden of his family home, resplendent with bougainvillea and marigolds, in his first interview since returning to his homeland after 17 years in exile. “The thing is that I’m not very good at talking anyway,” he shrugs, “but if you ask me to do something, I try my best.”
It’s been a whirlwind few weeks for Rahman, who arrived in Bangladesh on Dec. 25, greeted by hundreds of thousands of rapturous supporters who had waited throughout the night at Dhaka’s airport. Just five days later, his mother, Bangladesh’s first female Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, passed away following a long illness, drawing even larger numbers to throng the sprawling capital to pay their respects. “It’s very heavy in my heart,” says Rahman, eyes welling. “But the lesson I learned from her is that when you have a responsibility, you must perform it.”
That responsibility might be nothing less than following in her footsteps. Rahman is the clear front runner in Feb. 12 elections, which were called after Hasina’s ouster in a student-led popular uprising 18 months ago. Rahman is positioning himself as a bridge between a political aristocracy that dates back to Bangladesh’s liberation struggle and the aspirations of its young revolutionaries.
Many issues require swift remedy. Bangladesh suffers from high inflation and a weak taka currency, which combine to erode real incomes for ordinary households. Declining foreign reserves have led to import restrictions that undermine manufacturing and energy supplies. These headwinds impede efforts to diversify a national economy still reliant on garment exports and overseas remittances. With youth unemployment at 13.5%, and 2 million young Bangladeshis entering the workforce each year, there’s a dire need to create opportunities for the next generation.
Yet Rahman comes with baggage. His chief credentials are dynastic—as the son of Zia and independence hero Ziaur Rahman, the 60-year-old represents the opposite branch of a feuding duopoly that has dominated Bangladeshi politics since its inception (Hasina being the daughter of founding President Sheikh Mujib).
To his supporters, Rahman is a persecuted redeemer returning to save his beleaguered homeland. To his detractors, he’s a dark prince, a venal and entitled university dropout whose only leadership qualification is an accident of birth. Rahman insists he’s the right person to heal his riven nation. “It’s not because I’m the son of my father and mother,” he says. “My party supporters are the reason why I’m here today.”
Bangladeshis appear willing to take him at his word. Opinion polls from late December showed support for his Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) at around 70%, with its nearest challengers, the main Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, at 19%.
Yet anxiety is palpable. During the BNP’s last stint in power from 2001 to 2006, Transparency International ranked Bangladesh the world’s most corrupt country for four consecutive years. Reformists fear the blood of up to 1,400 slain protesters killed to unseat Hasina may produce another self-serving scion.
Rahman denies all corruption allegations, and his prior convictions were quashed by the interim government. “They have failed to prove anything,” he says of his accusers. It’s certainly true that Hasina’s Awami League was aided by a compliant press that blindly parroted accusations against him. But it’s equally true that Rahman is steeped in the same hereditary privilege that the July revolution railed against.
South Asia’s second biggest economy is regularly the top single contributor to U.N. peacekeepers and also joins exercises with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. The nation, one of the world’s most densely populated, also hosts over 1 million Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in war-torn neighboring Myanmar. The U.S. is the biggest source of foreign direct investment and the top destination for Bangladeshi exports, while the nation is moving into high-tech manufacturing, allowing international firms like Samsung to extricate supply chains from China. But Beijing also covets ties to Bangladesh, which offers strategic access to the Bay of Bengal that could mitigate any blockade scenario in the South China Sea.
The hope is that the institutional reforms started by the interim administration of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus deliver the necessary checks and balances to avert another lurch toward despotism. And, for that matter, that Rahman has undergone the necessary self-reflection and growth during his years in the political wilderness to truly become a leader for his people.
“We have a very, very strong responsibility to those people who lost their lives,” he says. “We need to work together, unite, so that people can have their political rights.”
Rahman appears soft-spoken and introverted, preferring to listen rather than hold court. His favorite pastime in London was strolling around leafy Richmond Park, lost in his thoughts, or reading history books. His favorite film is Air Force One. “I’ve probably seen it eight times!” he reveals.
Rahman comes across as a policy wonk who can summon facts and figures on any issue. He wants to dig 12,000 miles of canals to help replenish a depleted water table, plant 50 million trees a year to combat land degradation, and seed 50 new green spaces in Dhaka to help the smog-wreathed capital breathe. He has plans to install trash-burning power generators, repurpose technical colleges to upskill migrant workers, and partner with private hospitals to alleviate an overwhelmed state health care system.
“If I can implement just 30% of what I have planned, I’m sure the people of Bangladesh will support me,” he says.
It’s a technocratic approach a world apart from Rahman’s slippery reputation. He was born in Dhaka, where he attended an air force school before enrolling in the University of Dhaka in the mid-1980s. However, he failed to complete his international-relations degree, quitting during his second year. He subsequently went into business and then entered politics more formally in the 1990s, rising to become senior joint secretary general of the BNP. His growing influence as a power broker made him both a central figure in party strategy and a controversial one, with critics accusing him of corruption and undue interference in governance.
To many Bangladeshis, Rahman is still snidely known as Khamba Tarique, referring to an alleged corruption scandal whereby thousands of electricity poles, or khamba, were reportedly bought from an associate at inflated prices but never connected to the grid. Although Rahman steadfastly denies any impropriety, a leaked 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable branded him “a symbol of kleptocratic government and violent politics” and noted his reputation for “flagrantly and frequently demanding bribes.”
During Bangladesh’s 2007–2008 military-backed caretaker government, Rahman was imprisoned for 18 months on 84 charges including embezzlement, money laundering, and orchestrating a grenade attack on an Awami League convoy. He suffered torture in prison that caused spinal problems that still blight him today, and his departure to the U.K. was originally to seek medical treatment. “If the winter is very cold, then I get back pain,” he says. “But I see it as a reminder of the responsibility I have toward the people. I must give my best so that others do not suffer this kind of thing in the future.” With his ailing mother detained in 2018 on corruption charges she claimed were politically motivated, Rahman became the BNP’s acting chairman, directing party activities via video link from abroad.
For much of the intervening period, Bangladesh prospered. It became the Asia-Pacific’s fastest growing economy, with GDP rising from $71 billion in 2006 to $460 billion in 2022. But the Awami League simultaneously became ever more repressive. Some 3,500 people were extrajudicially disappeared during the last 15 years of Hasina’s reign, says the interim government, while every institution was politicized, engendering deep distrust of the military, courts, civil service, and especially security services. Independent journalists and civil society complained of surveillance and harassment.
Over time, economic indicators turned negative with costs, inequality, and youth unemployment all soaring. The July uprising began with peaceful demonstrations against employment quotas for regime loyalists, but Hasina’s ham-fisted crackdown ignited a powder keg of fury against political repression that brought tens of thousands of teenagers and grandparents, professors and panhandlers, united onto the street.
As demonstrators bore down on Hasina’s official residence in Dhaka, she fled in a military helicopter to India, where she remains with a cabal of confidants, railing against her ouster and the subsequent exclusion of her Awami League party from the upcoming elections. “Electors have to be given the right to choose between alternatives,” Hasina tells TIME. “Until Bangladesh holds truly participatory elections that allow all major parties, there is no hope for democracy.”
Hasina’s complaining about eroded democracy is particularly rich to Rahman, given the sheer scale of bloodshed she presided over, with security forces turning armored vehicles on protesters armed with sticks and rocks, and even opening fire upon crowds from a helicopter. “Whoever commits a crime, there are rules, there are laws in this country,” he says. “So they must get their punishment.” In November, a war-crime tribunal decided that punishment would be death, were Hasina ever to return to Bangladesh.
Yet the decision to exclude the Awami League is controversial. Sheikh Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, recently told Reuters that party loyalists had been instructed to disrupt the vote. “We will not allow elections without the Awami League to go ahead,” he said. “Our protests are going to get stronger and stronger … eventually there’s probably going to be violence.”
Unrest won’t help win friends in Washington, where sporadic attacks on minorities were amplified by the Awami League as evidence that radical Islamists had seized control. Both the Awami League and influential Indians have been lobbying President Donald Trump to impose sanctions. More recently, the Trump Administration imposed “reciprocal” tariffs of 20% on Bangladesh, which has hit its export-reliant economy. Rahman says he’s exploring ways to reduce the nation’s trade deficit and negotiate a reprieve by potentially purchasing Boeing airplanes and U.S. energy infrastructure.
“Donald Trump will look after the interests of his country,” says Rahman. “I will look after the interests of my country. But we can also help each other. I’m sure Mr. Trump is a very reasonable man.”
Mementos of the July revolution still festoon the Bangladeshi capital, where garish murals celebrate Hasina’s ouster by depicting the dethroned autocrat with devil horns and surrounded by sacks of loot. Slogans proclaim: “Shame on Bangladeshi Police!” and “This is a new Bangladesh made by Gen-Z.”
“After July, people wanted the system to be changed, for the judiciary, bureaucracy, and police to be independent,” says Hasnat Abdullah, a 26-year-old candidate for the fledgling National Citizen Party (NCP), spawned from the student protest leaders. Regarding Rahman, Abdullah is reserving judgment but likes what he’s seen. “Tarique Rahman is doing really well,” he says. “Leading a party like the BNP is really difficult. It’s too early to comment on his performance, but so far he’s doing great.”
The jury is also out regarding the success of reforms. Just as those revolutionary murals have sun-bleached and blistered, so the heady jubilation of the students’ victory has become tarnished by infighting and division.
All political parties were excluded from the interim government, and as Yunus also had no government experience, the effort’s leaders lacked institutional heft. Women were at the forefront of the uprising yet were largely sidelined in the interim government, heading just one of the six reform commissions: the Women’s Affairs Reform Commission. But that was subjected to vulgar protests from Islamists who argued its recommendations for gender equality violated Shari‘a law. Its proposals were shelved.
There were some successes: a Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances examined 1,913 complaints and determined 1,569 had disappeared, of which 287 fell into the “Missing and Dead” category. (Nearly all were members of Jamaat or the BNP.) Despite pressure from the armed forces, suspects are tried in civilian court. Political discourse in Bangladesh has also opened up. Mubashar Hasan, an adjunct professor at Western Sydney University, who was extrajudicially detained for 44 days under Hasina, recalls how he recently took part in an open seminar to discuss the politicization of military, judiciary, and intelligence services. “Afterward, I came home and slept in peace,” he says. “That was unthinkable during the Hasina period.”
But at the same time, law and order has significantly eroded with a troubling spike in vigilante lynchings and mob violence, as well as the abuse and online doxing of women in particular. A nadir was reached on Dec. 12, when youth leader and election candidate Sharif Osman Hadi, a fierce critic of India’s hosting of Hasina, was fatally shot by masked assailants in Dhaka. Following his death, a mob set fire to two leading newspaper offices in Dhaka they accused of being pro–New Delhi, trapping dozens of journalists on a rooftop as the flames licked higher. The perception is that the police and military don’t feel empowered to fully discharge their duties given lingering public revulsion at their role in the July uprising.
“Our first priority will be to ensure the rule of law,” says Rahman. “To make sure that people are safe on the street, safe to do business.”
However, there’s been little so far in terms of efforts to install the necessary guardrails to ensure abuses don’t happen again. When they go to the polls to choose their new leader, Bangladeshis will also vote on a referendum on constitutional reforms, including establishing a bicameral legislature, sharing more power between the Prime Minister and President, allowing independent voting by lawmakers, and a prime-ministerial term limit of 10 years. A no vote “would be very disappointing,” says Ali Riaz, who headed the interim government’s Constitutional Reform Commission. “It would leave the country in a situation where it might actually go back to the past.”
The decision to bar the Awami League from the ballot could also backfire if socioeconomic indicators don’t improve—and fast. “No election that excludes the country’s largest and oldest political party can ever be considered free or fair,” says Hasina. Riaz is unapologetic. “This is a political party which perpetrated such heinous acts, which are basically crimes against humanity, yet they have not apologized for it,” he says. “There is no remorse. Rather, they’re inciting people.”
Rahman won’t be drawn out on whether excluding the Awami League was correct, but says in principle he doesn’t like the banning of any political party. “Because if you ban a political party today, what assurance do I have that tomorrow you will not ban me?” he says. “Of course, if someone is responsible for some kind of crime, they must face the consequences.”
While Rahman’s return has injected optimism into Bangladesh, the most striking change postrevolution is resurgent Islamism. Bangladesh is a crucible boasting a Muslim population bigger than any Middle Eastern nation, with a sizable minority of around 10% Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and others. Although constitutionally secular, the country made Islam the state religion during a military dictatorship in 1988, with the resulting paradox providing fertile ground for radical fundamentalists.
For all her legion of faults, Hasina kept a lid on extremism and had even recognized a transgender-protection law. But one of the first actions the interim government took was to rescind a ban on Jamaat, the Islamist party, which today enjoys strong youth engagement owing to a canny social media strategy.
In September, Jamaat’s student wing won a landslide victory for the first time in the Dhaka University elections—-traditionally considered a bellwether for the national mood—and also swept four other prominent universities. The NCP has also backed Jamaat, prompting dozens of mainly female leaders to quit in protest. Muntasir Rahman, an out gay LGBTQ-rights advocate, was removed from the NCP’s central committee after a backlash from party conservatives. “It’s very disturbing for women student leaders as well as all the minorities and young people who had faith in them,” says Ho Chi Minh Islam, a Dhaka-based nurse and transgender-rights activist.
Jamaat has the goal of Shari‘a law in its constitution though has moderated its more radical rhetoric, rebranding itself “anti-fascist,” focusing on social welfare, and vowing to work with other parties. It has even nominated a Hindu candidate in one minority stronghold constituency. While critics say these changes are merely cosmetic, many ordinary Bangladeshis have been sold on the veneer of incorruptibility that comes from a theological under-pinning. In early January, Jamaat’s leader even revealed he had held secret talks with a senior Indian diplomat—an unprecedented meeting unthinkable in the past. Rahman is unconcerned. “People just want to get back to a democracy where they can speak freely, where they can express themselves,” he says.
Repairing relations with India will be a priority for whoever takes power. Bangladesh is almost surrounded by the South Asian superpower, with their 2,500-mile shared border one of the world’s longest, making India the primary land transit route for Bangladeshi goods and a major source of imports, including cotton, grains, fuel, industrial materials, and electricity. “Guarding the interests of our people and country comes first,” says Rahman, “but then we will try to take relations further.”
India’s hosting of Hasina and amplification of pro–Awami League propaganda has made New Delhi the chief villain in the eyes of young Bangladeshis. “Even someone like Tarique Rahman incurs sizable political risks by openly calling for an embrace of New Delhi,” says Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council.
It’s illustrative of profound generational shifts. Jamaat sided with Pakistan during the 1971 liberation war and against Bangladeshi independence, which New Delhi supported with funds, arms, and the lives of over 3,800 Indian soldiers. Yet for young Bangladeshis today, Jamaat represents the incorruptible while India is the mortal enemy.
This break from the past shows that Rahman cannot lean heavily on his family legacy. Today’s Bangladeshis have no use for tales of heroism from half a century ago; what they desperately crave is a leader who listens, builds bridges, and strengthens institutions to project the stability and confidence vital for international investment. If economic doldrums continue, an assailed populace may look more fondly at Hasina’s record. “One can never rule out dynastic parties,” says Kugelman, noting how the BNP looked “dead and buried” just two years ago. “Even Sheikh Hasina may not be finished. She’s not a factor now, but you can’t rule her out down the road.”
While Rahman is all too aware of corruption’s corrosive effect, the danger for Bangladesh lies in the thousands of low-ranking BNP cadres who suffered under Hasina and believe they’ve now earned the right to wet their beaks. Ensuring party discipline won’t be easy.
There are signs that Rahman has learned from previous missteps. In May, he reposted a satirical cartoon lampooning himself and his mother, noting the need to “respect fearless and objective reporting, even when it may not align with our agenda.” At Zia’s funeral, he pointedly declined to score political points by condemning her treatment under Hasina, instead calling for unity. In contrast with Hasina’s “Iron Lady” persona, Rahman’s is deliberately softer; his pet cat, Jebu, a magnificent ginger Siberian, went viral on social media after his arrival from the U.K.
Asked what he misses about his former life in London, Rahman doesn’t hesitate. “My freedom,” he says, gazing up at the 10-ft. barbed-wire fence that surrounds his family home. “When I came to this house, and saw all this security, I felt claustrophobic.” Gone are the days of meandering to the neighborhood shops or spontaneously driving his Lexus up to Fort William to surprise his daughter Zaima on her descent from Ben Nevis. Getting his daily 10,000 steps will require creative planning.
But Rahman isn’t grumbling; he’s showing that his return was not on a whim, but fueled by purpose, a determination to better his people’s lot. He reaches for a favorite film quote to drive home the point; not from Air Force One, but Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility,” he says. “I very much believe that.”
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