A once-banned Bangladeshi party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, poised for its strongest electoral showing in polls in February, is open to joining a unity government and has held talks with several parties, its chief said.
“We want to see a stable nation for at least five years. If the parties come together, we’ll run the government together,” the Jamaat Ameer (President) Shafiqur Rahman said in an interview on Wednesday at his office in a residential area in Dhaka, days after the party created a buzz by securing a tie-up with a Gen-Z party.
Opinion polls suggest Jamaat-e-Islami has emerged as the second most popular party after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), also positioning it as a potential contender for power in its first election in nearly 17 years, marking a return to mainstream politics in the Muslim-majority nation of 175 million.
Jamaat last held power between 2001 and 2006 as a junior coalition partner with the BNP.
Rahman also said anti-corruption must be a shared agenda for any unity government.
The prime minister will come from the party winning the most seats, he added. If Jamaat wins the most seats, the party will decide whether he himself would be a candidate, Rahman said.
The party’s resurgence follows the ouster of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a youth-led uprising in August 2024.
Hasina, whose Awami League party is now barred from the election, was a fierce critic of Jamaat, and during her tenure, several of its leaders were sentenced to death for alleged war crimes during the 1971 independence conflict with Pakistan, which Jamaat opposed.
Many critics at home and abroad said the trials and sentences were politically motivated.
Jamaat had been banned from elections since 2013 after a court ruled its charter violated the country’s secular constitution.
An interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus lifted all restrictions on the party in August 2024.
Ties with India
Rahman said Hasina’s continued stay in India after fleeing Dhaka was a concern, as ties between the two countries have hit their lowest point in decades since her downfall.
India had cultivated a close working relationship with Hasina, helping expand business and trade ties between the neighbours.
As New Delhi seeks to engage parties that could form the next government, Rahman confirmed meeting an Indian diplomat earlier this year. Unlike diplomats from other countries who visited him openly, the Indian official asked that the meeting remain confidential, Rahman said.
"We must become open to all and to each other. There is no alternative to developing our relationship,” he said.
India's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Rahman's statement. But an Indian government source confirmed contacts with various parties.
Asked about Jamaat’s historical closeness to Pakistan, Rahman said: “We maintain relations in a balanced way with all. We are never interested in leaning toward any one country.
Rather, we respect all and want balanced relations among nations.”
