Bangladesh opposition leader Tarique Rahman returns after 17 years in exile | Politics News

The heir to Bangladesh’s longtime ruling family and leader of the country’s powerful opposition, Tarique Rahman, has returned to the country after nearly 17 years in exile, his party said.

Rahman, 60, an aspiring prime minister who has lived in London since he fled Bangladesh in 2008 over what he called politically motivated persecution, arrived in Dhaka on Thursday.

Acting chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), he is expected to take the reins from his ailing mother, 80-year-old former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

Hundreds of thousands of supporters lined ​the route from the capital’s airport to the reception venue, waving party ‍flags and carrying placards, banners and flowers, while chanting slogans welcoming Rahman, as senior BNP leaders received him at the airport under tight security.

Dressed in a light grey, finely chequered blazer over a crisp white shirt, Rahman waved to the crowd with a smile.

The BNP earlier said it aims to gather up to five million supporters in the capital to welcome Rahman, for what it called an “unprecedented” mobilisation.

Rahman is widely viewed as the prime ministerial frontrunner in February’s general election.

His arrival comes as the BNP regains momentum – after the 2024 ouster of longtime leader Sheikh Hasina.

Rahman’s return is at a moment “when Bangladesh is going through a very volatile and uncertain future”, said Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury, reporting from Dhaka.

“Although the election date has been announced, there’s a vacuum for leadership and power, particularly within the Bangladesh Nationalist Party – which is one of the largest parties in Bangladesh – and his mother [who has] been critically ill, is the chairperson of the party. He’s going to fill up that vacuum,” he added.

Rahman is expected to bring unity to the currently polarised country, even while there is criticism that Hasina’s party is not being allowed to participate in the upcoming election, said Chowdhury.

The former self-exiled leader is expected to have some success with this as the head of the current interim government, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, while also “immensely popular”, has not been able to “maintain the kind of law and order and stability that was expected, partly because there’s a lot of remnants of the last government who were in the security forces and in the administration”, he added.

Shifting political landscape

Rahman had been unable to return to Bangladesh for years while facing multiple criminal cases at home.

He was convicted in absentia on charges that included money laundering and in a case linked to an alleged plot to assassinate Hasina, but the rulings were overturned after Hasina was ‌ousted last year in a student-led uprising, clearing the legal barriers to Rahman’s return.

Rahman’s move to London was for medical treatment after he was allegedly tortured while in custody during the military-backed government that ruled from 2006 to 2008.

His homecoming also carries personal urgency, with Khaleda Zia seriously ill for months. Party officials said Rahman would travel from the airport to a reception ‌venue before visiting his mother.

The political landscape has shifted sharply since Hasina’s removal from power, ending decades in which she and Khaleda ‌Zia largely alternated in office.

Khaleda Zia, a former housewife, came to politics after her husband, former military chief and then president Ziaur Rahman, was assassinated in a military coup in 1981. A non-elected government backed by the military took over in 2006 during a period of political chaos.

A December survey by the United States-based ⁠International Republican Institute suggested the BNP is on course to win the largest number of parliamentary seats in the elections, with the Jamaat-e-Islami party also in the race. Hasina’s Awami League party, which has been barred from the election, has ‌threatened unrest that some fear could disrupt the vote.

Bangladesh is heading to the polls under Yunus. While authorities have pledged a free and ‍peaceful election, recent attacks on media outlets and sporadic violence have raised concerns, making Rahman’s return a defining moment for the BNP and the country’s fragile political transition.