This article lists political parties in People's Republic of Bangladesh.
Since the restoration of parliamentary democracy in 1991, Bangladesh has a fading two-party system, which means that two political parties dominate the general elections centrist Awami League (AL) and centre-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), with extreme difficulty for anybody to achieve electoral success under the banner of another party.
Although the AL and BNP dominated Bangladeshi politics for a long time, the two are currently leading coalitions of like-minded parties, with the AL leading the left-of-centre parties and the BNP rallying the right-of-centre parties.[1]
A party is recognised as a registered party only if it fulfils one of the conditions listed below:[2]
- A party needs to secure at least one seat with its electoral symbol in two previous parliamentary elections.
- Securing of five percent of total votes cast in the constituencies in which its candidates took part in any of the aforesaid parliamentary elections.
- It needs to set up a functional central office, by whatever name it may be called with a central committee, having offices at least in one-third administrative districts, and offices at least in 100 upazilas or metropolitan thanas. And the party must have a minimum 200 voters as its members in each upazila.
These were all of the political parties that held at least one seat in the Jatiya Sangsad. The 12th Jatiya Sangsad was dissolved on 6 August 2024. This is the state prior to the dissolution.
The Grand Alliance (মহাজোট) is a coalition government in Bangladesh that formed in 2008 and consisted of the Bangladesh Awami League, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, Workers Party and three other parties.
Liberal Democratic Party left the Grand Alliance before the election and contested independently. It joined the 18 Party Alliance in 2012.
The Left Democratic Alliance is an alliance of 8 Leftist Political parties including Communist Party of Bangladesh, Socialist Party of Bangladesh, Revolutionary Workers Party of Bangladesh, United Communist League Of Bangladesh, Ganatantrik Biplobi Party, Bam Gonotantrik Andolon and Ganosamhati Andolan.[6]
Since 1991, due to the two-party system, two major parties, Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party constantly dominate the politics and form government.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, abbreviated as BNP, was founded on 1 September 1978 by Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman, politician and physician A. Q. M. Badruddoza Chowdhury, human rights activist and lawyer Moudud Ahmed and leftist politician Mashiur Rahman as the key people. BNP has won the second, fifth, sixth and eighth national elections and two presidential elections, in 1978 and 1981 respectively. The party also holds the record of being the largest opposition in the history of parliamentary elections of the country with 116 seats in the seventh national election of 1996.[7]The party does not have any representation in the parliament after its boycott of the national election of 2014 which the party had termed a scandalous farce and was marked by a very low turnout.[8]
These are all the parties that are currently registered under Election Commission.[9][10]