Jamaat-e-Islami gains ground in Bangladesh ahead of February polls

Recent IRI poll ranks it as the nation's most 'liked' party, signalling a massive shift in the political landscape

DHAKA:

Long vilified for opposing independence and barred from electoral politics for over a decade, Bangladesh's biggest religio-political party is reinventing itself and attracting new support ahead of parliamentary polls next month, unsettling moderates and minority communities.

Jamaat-e-Islami began its overhaul soon after a youth-led uprising in the Muslim-majority nation of 175 million people toppled Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024. With Hasina’s Awami League banned, Jamaat is betting on its anti-corruption image, welfare outreach, and what analysts describe as a more inclusive public stance to deliver the party's best-ever performance.

A December opinion poll by the US-based International Republican Institute ranked Jamaat as the most "liked" party and projected a tight race with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party for the top spot in the February 12 election.

"We started welfare politics, not reactionary politics," Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman told Reuters, citing its medical camp initiatives, flood relief and aid for families of those killed in the uprising. The UN says as many as 1,400 people lost their lives in the protests.

"The constructive politics, which Jamaat and its associates ... are doing now, people will put their trust and belief in Jamaat-e-Islami," Rahman said.

The party has its origins in the pan-Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami movement, which emerged in India in the early 1940s and called for a society governed by Islamic principles. Jamaat opposed Bangladesh's independence, and during Hasina's rule, many of its leaders were executed or jailed in a war crimes tribunal that was criticised by international human rights groups. In 2013, it was barred from elections after a court ruled its charter was in conflict with Bangladesh's secular constitution.

Read: BD's Jamaat-e-Islami open to unity govt

The electoral ban was lifted last year, and Jamaat's student wing swept the Dhaka University polls, beating the Gen-Z National Citizen Party formed by leaders of the anti-Hasina movement.

Months later, it formed an electoral alliance with the NCP, which some analysts say could help soften Jamaat’s image.

"We want something new, and the new option is Jamaat," said Mohammad Jalal, 40, who sells coconut water from a mobile van in a crowded Dhaka market. "They have a clean image and work for the country."

Political analyst and theologian Shafi Md. Mostafa said the party’s shift from a “stigmatised force with limited space” to a “rehabilitated, pragmatic contender” had been helped by public anger over abuses during Hasina's rule.

"The authoritarian tendencies of the Awami League have created widespread frustration, allowing Jamaat to revive its rallying cry of ‘Islam as a solution’ and present itself as a moral alternative,” Mostafa said.

For the first time, Jamaat has nominated a Hindu candidate and spoken out against recent attacks on minorities. On its website, the party says it wants Bangladesh to be a democracy guided by Islamic principles.

Party leaders have also publicly assured women of equal rights, though Jamaat has not named any women as candidates for the 300 parliamentary seats. Rahman said women could gain representation through the 50 seats to be allocated by proportional representation after the election.