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The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has selected its Secretary General, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, as the party’s candidate for the presidency.
BNP Chairman and Prime Minister Tarique Rahman finalized Mirza Fakhrul’s candidacy during a meeting with senior party leaders at the Secretariat this afternoon.
After the meeting, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi announced Mirza Fakhrul’s nomination for the presidency.
His nomination papers are expected to be submitted to the Election Commission shortly. Mirza Fakhrul has also resigned from his post as BNP Secretary General.
Mirza Fakhrul became the BNP’s acting Secretary General in 2011 and was formally appointed Secretary General at the party’s national council in 2016. Over the years, he emerged as one of the party’s top leaders. He played a key leadership role during the periods when the party’s two principal leaders, Khaleda Zia, was imprisoned, and Tarique Rahman was living in exile in London. During the Awami League government, he was jailed six times. He continued to lead the party despite various forms of repression and adversity under the previous government and became known as a widely respected political leader.
Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was elected as a Member of Parliament from the Thakurgaon-1 constituency in the 13th parliamentary election. He later joined Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s government as Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives.
On July 24, Mohammad Sahabuddin, who had been elected president with the nomination of the Awami League, whose activities are currently banned, resigned from the presidency. Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmed is currently serving as acting president. Under the Constitution, a new president must be elected within 90 days of the office becoming vacant.
According to the schedule announced by the Election Commission, presidential candidates must submit their nomination papers by 4:00pm today. The nominations will then be scrutinized. August 18 is the deadline for withdrawal of candidacies. If more than one candidate remains in the race, voting for the presidency will be held on August 20.
The 11-party alliance led by Jamaat-e-Islami has nominated Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Chairman Colonel (retd.) Oli Ahmed for president. His nomination papers were submitted at around 11:00am today.
If no candidate withdraws, the country will see a presidential election involving a vote for the first time in nearly 35 years. The last contested presidential election was held in 1991. Since then, seven presidents have been elected unopposed, all from the ruling party, while opposition parties did not nominate candidates for the presidency.
Under the Constitution, the president is elected by members of Parliament. The BNP currently holds more than a two-thirds majority in Parliament, while opposition parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami, have a combined 90 members, including reserved seats for women.
As a result, the BNP-backed candidate is widely expected to win the vote. If that happens, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir will become the country’s 23rd president.