Country profile
Bangladesh
Gana Prajatantri Bangladesh
Asia · Southern Asia
BD · BGD
- Capital
- Dhaka
- Population
- 169,828,911
- Area
- 147,570 km²
- Democracy index
- 73
- Regime type
- Fragmented Democracy
Events
Ballots from Bangladesh
The latest elections, referendums, and opinion polls from Bangladesh. Community totals are not official results.
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Classification
Democracy profile
The score and regime label are assigned by Porto Voto using our in-house democracy index and classification framework, not ratings from governments or external agencies.
Democracy index
73/100
Regime type
Fragmented Democracy
Bangladesh is undergoing a significant institutional transition following the February 2026 parliamentary elections, which resulted in a landslide victory for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the appointment of Tarique Rahman as Prime Minister. This shift effectively ended fifteen years of dominant party rule by the Awami League and has been followed by early efforts to reform the civil service and roll back restrictive digital security legislation. While the peaceful transfer of power indicates a restoration of electoral competition, the country faces intense partisan friction as the new administration seeks to investigate former officials and dismantle established patronage networks. The judiciary and the election commission are currently in a state of flux, with ongoing personnel changes raising questions about their future independence from the new executive. Media pluralism has seen a cautious expansion, yet the environment remains colored by retaliatory legal actions against figures associated with the previous government. This period of reconstruction places the nation in a state of high governance volatility, where the potential for a more robust democratic framework is balanced against the risks of a new cycle of political polarization and institutional capture.
Last evaluation:
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Country background
A concise introduction to Bangladesh, together with notes on how power and law are organized, to put local ballots in context.
The huge delta region at the confluence of the Ganges and Brahmaputra River systems -- now referred to as Bangladesh -- was a loosely incorporated outpost of various empires for much of the first millennium A.D. Muslim conversions and settlement in the region began in the 10th century, primarily from Arab and Persian traders and preachers. Europeans established trading posts in the area in the 16th century.
Eventually the area known as Bengal, which is primarily Hindu in the western section and mostly Muslim in the eastern half, became part of British India. After the partition of India in 1947, the Muslim-majority area became East Pakistan. Calls for greater autonomy and animosity between the eastern and western areas of Pakistan led to a Bengali independence movement.
That movement, led by the Awami League (AL) and supported by India, won the independence war for Bangladesh in 1971. The military overthrew the post-independence AL government in 1975, the first of a series of military coups that resulted in a military-backed government and the subsequent creation of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) that took power in 1979. That government also ended in a coup in 1981, followed by military-backed rule until democratic elections were held in 1991.
The BNP and AL alternated in power from 1991 to 2008, with the exception of a military-backed, emergency caretaker regime in 2007. The country returned to fully democratic rule in 2008 with the election of the AL and Prime Minister Sheikh HASINA. With the help of international development assistance, Bangladesh is on track to graduate from the UN’s Least Developed Countries (LDC) list in 2026.
The economy has grown at an annual average of about 6.25% for the last two decades. Poverty declined from 11.8 percent in 2010 to 5.0 percent in 2022, based on the international poverty line of $2.15 a day (using 2017 Purchasing Power Parity exchange rate). The country made a rapid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, but still faces economic challenges.