Acting Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairman Tarique Rahman, center, speaks to members and supporters in Dhaka, Bangladesh, after ending 17 years of exile by returning from London on Thursday. Photo by Monirul Alam/EPA
Tarique Rahman returned to Bangladesh’s capital city of Dhaka on Thursday after ending a 17-year exile in Britain and is among the favorites to become the nation’s next prime minister.
Rahman, 60, leads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and continued doing so from afar during his exile, but he now is leading it from within Bangladesh and ahead of February’s parliamentary elections, The New York Times reported.
Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is in exile in India after her Awami League party was overthrown and outlawed in 2024.
With the Awami League outlawed, the BNP is viewed as the most politically influential party in Bangladesh, and Rahman is favored to be the nation’s next prime minister, according to the BBC.
Rahman lived in London since his exile began in 2008 and was accused of corruption by a caretaker government in 2007.
He left for Britain when he was released on bail in 2008 and stayed away until Thursday.
Hasina, 78, in November was sentenced to death for her part in violently suppressing anti-government protests.
The International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh tried her in absentia for the deaths of an estimated 1,400 people who participated in protests led by students.
Rahman and Hasina come from political families that have been traditional opponents since the late 1970s.
Rahman’s father, Zia ur Rahman, controlled the Bangladeshi government in the late 1970s after the assassination of Sheikh Muji aka Mugibur Rahman.
Zia Rahman also was assassinated during an attempted military coup, which led to Khaleda Zia, Rahman’s mother, becoming the nation’s first female prime minister in 1991.
She was a rival of Hasina, and the two mostly alternated as the country’s prime minister as their respective political parties gained and lost political power over the past three decades.
