In Hasina's hometown in Bangladesh, voters face an unfamiliar ballot

GOPALGANJ (Reuters) - For the first time in decades, the image that once defined the hometown of Bangladesh's ousted premier Sheikh Hasina during elections, her Awami League party's "boat" symbol, is absent.

In its place, posters of rivals like the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the Jamaat‑e‑Islami party and independents urge voters in Gopalganj to back them in the February 12 election.

The Gopalganj district has long been considered the Awami League’s safest ground, producing Hasina, the country's longest-serving prime minister, and her father, Bangladesh's founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Hasina ruled for more than 15 straight years until 2024, with the opposition either boycotting elections or marginalised through mass arrests of senior leaders. A youth‑driven uprising toppled Hasina in August 2024 and sent her into exile in India.

Her party has since been barred from the February election, being held under an interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.

Hasina told Reuters last October via email that the absence of the Awami League would leave millions of supporters without a candidate and push many to boycott the election.

“They can put up as many posters as they want," said Gopalganj rickshaw puller Ershad Sheikh, standing under layers of opposition posters hanging from poles.

"If there is no boat on the ballot paper, none of the 13 voters in my family will go to the polling station.”

A Dhaka court late last year sentenced Hasina to death for ordering a deadly crackdown on the 2024 uprising. A United Nations report estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed and thousands wounded — most by gunfire from security forces, though Hasina denied ordering the killings.

AWAMI LEAGUE VOTERS SHIFTING TO BNP, JAMAAT

A survey of various voters published this month found that nearly half of former Awami League voters now prefer the BNP, the frontrunner in most opinion polls, followed by roughly 30% who favour Jamaat.

“These patterns suggest that former Awami League voters are not dispersing evenly across the party system or withdrawing from partisan preferences, but are instead consolidating their support around specific opposition alternatives,” said the survey by Dhaka-based Communication & Research Foundation and Bangladesh Election and Public Opinion Studies.

In Gopalganj, families of Awami League activists say the transition away from Hasina has come at a high personal cost.

Shikha Khanam’s brother, Ibrahim Hossain, 30, an activist in the party’s student wing, was arrested in December under the Anti-Terrorism Act over unrest at a rally in July last year. Khanam said her brother had been falsely implicated.

Her family has now withdrawn completely from politics.

“We won’t vote. We are done,” she said.

The July rally in Gopalganj, organised by the newly formed student‑led National Citizen Party to mark the 2024 uprising, left five people dead in clashes with police. Several Awami League activists and members of minority communities said they are now living in fear.

Restaurant waiter Mohabbat Molla said the wider choice of candidates changes nothing for him

“Our candidate isn’t here,” he said, referring to Hasina. “The Awami League isn’t here. So this election is not for us.”

COMPETITIVE ELECTION

Others see hope in the changing election bunting now hanging from Gopalganj's walls.

Businessman Sheikh Ilias Ahmed hopes the upcoming vote will finally allow people to choose freely.

“In the past, I went to the polling station and found my vote already cast,” he said. "This time, I want to believe things will be different.”

What Awami League voters do next may shape the outcome, said political analyst Asif Shahan, a professor at the University of Dhaka.

“I don’t expect a nationwide boycott,” said Shahan.

“The core loyalists may abstain, but undecided, locally focused voters are likely to turn out and could decide the result."