DHAKA: Gen Z’s sacrifice of 1400 lives, during 2004’s 45-day anti-govt protests, forced premier bolt to India, but in 12th Feb polls voters elected BNP’s 60-year-old Black Prince Tarique Rahman.
The other is a 67-year-old Islamist leader whose party is fielding no women candidates in the polls.
But its support of what was then West Pakistan during the war of 1971 – that resulted in independence for East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh – continues to anger many Bangladeshis.
But the two candidates most likely to lead Bangladesh into a post-Hasina future are a far cry from those who risked everything on the barricades and in the streets to topple her.
One is the 60-year-old scion of a political dynasty which has dominated Bangladeshi politics for decades. The other is a 67-year-old Islamist leader whose party is fielding no women candidates in the polls.
As many as 1,400 people were killed during 2024’s weekslong anti-government protests, most at the hands of security forces, according to the UN. It said the killings could amount to “crimes against humanity”.
Newspakistan.tv
