Bangladesh will hold the 13th parliamentary election on February 12, 2026, Chief Election Commissioner A.M.M. Nasir Uddin announced on Thursday (December 11, 2025).

A referendum on a landmark democratic reform charter will also be held on the same day, the CEC said in a television broadcast to the nation.

This will be the first election after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted in a violent student-led protest in August 2024.

Interim leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who returned from exile in August 2024 at the behest of protesters to lead a caretaker government, will step down after the polls.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by three-time former prime minister Khaleda Zia, is widely tipped to win.

But Ms. Zia is in intensive care in Dhaka, while her son and political heir Tarique Rahman has been in exile in Britain for 17 years and is yet to return.

With inputs from PTI, AFP