Bangladesh: First elections since student-led uprising
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Vote counting is underway in Bangladesh after its first election since the protests that overthrew the authoritarian Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024. We hear about the circumstances surrounding these elections.
Also on the programme: in China, annual emissions of carbon dioxide fell for the first time last year. Lauri Myllyvirta of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which compiled the data, explains the significance behind this, and the Berlin film festival opens tonight with an Afghanistan romcom. We hear from its writer, director and star, Shahrbanoo Sadat.
(Photo: Electoral workers count the votes, during the 13th general election in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 12 February, 2026. Credit: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.6 | Hello and welcome to NewsAft, and the BBC World Service. |
| 0:12.8 | We're coming to you live from London. |
| 0:14.7 | I'm James Menendez. |
| 0:16.2 | And coming up later in the programme, |
| 0:17.7 | the writer, director and star of the first ever romantic comedy to be set in Afghanistan. |
| 0:23.7 | I'm just telling the story of a human being living in a different geography. It doesn't matter if |
| 0:28.9 | that geography is Afghanistan or if it is another country. Sex, kissing, like intimacy, all this |
| 0:35.1 | existed in the daily life of any human being. |
| 0:38.9 | Doesn't matter where this person is living. |
| 0:41.5 | That's a very nice interview and it's coming up in 45 minutes. |
| 0:46.2 | But we are going to begin today in Bangladesh where more than 120 million people were |
| 0:51.1 | eligible to take part in today's landmark election. |
| 0:55.8 | I say landmark because for many of those people, perhaps as many as 40%, this was the first time they were able to cast a vote. |
| 1:02.5 | Bangladesh is full of young people and they were too young to take part the last time the country |
| 1:07.2 | held a meaningful election back in 2008. After that, a party called the Awami League |
| 1:13.3 | took charge and under the leadership of the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, other parties didn't |
| 1:18.6 | get a look at him. Frustration with her increasingly authoritarian rule came to a head in |
| 1:23.6 | 2024 when those same young people, mostly students, |
| 1:30.4 | took to the streets to protest against the government's corruption and its control over public sector jobs. |
| 1:33.9 | While frustration bawled over into fury and riots |
| 1:36.6 | when the security forces started shooting the protesters, |
... |
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