Published: 08:22 PM, 22 November 2025
Is Bangladesh Following Iran’s Playbook?
Dr. Richard L. Benkin
According to their current government, Bangladeshis can expect new elections in February 2026. Will it happen by then? Who knows? February will mark 18 months since the August 2024 coup that ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. After the last coup in 2007, it took 23 months before new elections were held, not far off the current estimate. At this same time, however, speculation about them is rife. Many of my Bangladeshi friends tell me that Chief Adviser Mohammad Yunus wants to delay them because he wants to hold onto power. More Bangladeshis, however, tell me that Jamaat and other Islamists are opposed to allowing free elections of any sort. But regardless of the vote’s specific date and especially given the increasing power of Islamists including Jamaat, Bangladeshis should ask themselves if they are at risk of taking the same path that Iranians did in 1979.
It is not a far-fetched question. Iran held presidential elections a year after the 1979 revolution and legislative elections two months later; neither dissimilar to Bangladesh’s election schedule. Like pre-coup Bangladesh, post-revolutionary Iran has held regularly scheduled elections without interruption that no credible international body or election observer considers either free or fair. More importantly, I know Bangladeshis and Iranians who will testify to that from their first-hand knowledge of violence and oppression. Like Bengalis, Iranians had a long history of educational and professional achievement, a vibrant press and literary class, and a stubborn (and justified) pride in their people’s history and culture. And like Bangladeshis in 2024, Iranians in 1979 deposed an autocratic regime with a feared internal security apparatus. Iran’s Bureau for Intelligence and Security of the State (SAVAK) committed the same human rights abuses that have gotten Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) barred from the United States and other countries.
By late 1978, Iranians had enough of the repressive government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and its pervasive corruption that favored its friends and, if you were lucky, ignored the rest of the citizenry. (Sound familiar?) On September 8, 1978, there was a large public protest against the regime in Tehran's Jaleh Square. But instead of recognizing the citizens’ anger and frustration, the government reacted violently, and many of the young protestors were killed. And that really did it. The violent government crackdown told the people that the Shah and his apparatus were not allowing them any legitimate right to protest what the government did, and it led to the uprising that brought down that government.
This is all very much like what happened in Bangladesh in 2024. How different were the 1978 events in Jaleh Square from last year’s July Massacres of protesting Bangladeshis that led to Sheikh Hasina’s violent ouster. In both Iran and Bangladesh, the people finally had enough, and a popular coalition of leftists, Islamists, and pro-democracy centrists joined forces to retake their countries and their futures. But if opposing an autocratic government was what united those disparate Iranian factions, after it was ousted, that unifying factor was gone, and things took a much different turn than those Iranians expected.
Iranians had been going to the polls since 1906, and much like Bangladesh’s elections, the results were largely, if not entirely, pre-determined. I recall being with several powerful Bangladeshis for a Bengali New Year celebration in 2019. When I challenged an
Awami League official about the recent election results, he admitted that the votes “were counted the day before the election took place.” I also have asked western officials and others when they can remember a Bangladeshi election that was certified as free and fair, and they cannot recall any. I often suggest 2008, which most observers passed over in recognition of the nation transitioning from military rule. So, in that way, both countries have a common history with unfair elections under the ousted regimes. Both countries were trying to maintain positive images to the international community, but eventually neither was able to hide the truth any longer from both global and domestic audiences. It took some time because both autocratic regimes presided over a degree of prosperity for a while, which dampened enthusiasm for regime change; and then let loose the floodgates of revolution as prosperity ended, while the accompanying inflation did not. That aforementioned coalition of groups otherwise opposed to each other joined together and fomented the social unrest and ultimately brought down governments that previously felt untouchable. In both cases, the nation’s youth was the revolutionary vanguard, and the group that took the greatest number of casualties from the regimes’ violent responses. It is tragically ironic given the Iranian regime’s oppression of women, that women played an outsized role in deposing the Shah, just as they did in ousting Sheikh Hasina.
In Iran and Bangladesh, the pattern was the same. Years of simmering anger and frustration erupted into mass, popular protests. The problems had been around for years, but a level of prosperity kept people satisfied just enough not to change things. When the economy faltered, there was nothing left to stop the people from expressing their anger. Both governments reacted with violence, hoping to squelch any nascent rebellion or even criticism with force. But it had the opposite effect, and people stopped fearing the government and its organs of oppression. In Bangladesh, it took about a month between the mass protests that began on 1 July 2024, and the government’s overthrow on 5 August. In Iran it took longer, which makes sense given the greater length of time the ousted regime was in power: Jaleh Square protest on 8 September 1978 to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s return to Iran on 1 February 1979. What happened next is the cautionary tale for Bangladeshis.
After Khomeini returned, he led opposition to any negotiated settlement that left the Shah-appointed civilian leaders with any role in the government—and like Bangladesh’s interim government and its supporters, demonized them and demanded their party never play a role in government again. He and the regime supported mass executions of those who did not already flee the country (also similar to Bangladesh, from which an estimated 100,000 former supporters of the Awami League, journalists, and others have fled). Once installed in office without any election but with military backing (which also should sound familiar to Bangladeshis today); his regime started the process of eliminating former, non-Islamist allies. In early 1980, forces acting for the regime and with regime backing attacked moderate and leftist bookstores and meetings, and the government banned publications and other activities of groups allied with it during the revolution. They also started eliminating non-Islamists from government, the military, and education. In frequent addresses, Khomeini and others in the regime, said these people were “too westernized," a phrase popularized against the former regime that implied these former allies were almost as bad for the nation. He called them kaffirs and said they were “infected” with “the Western plague,” which in reality tended to be democracy, free speech, and respect for differing religious beliefs within and outside of Islam. In June 1981, Khomeini and his sycophants removed the last bit of resistance to their tyrannical rule by engineering the impeachment of Iran’s modernist president, Abolhassen Banisadr, by the Islamist-controlled parliament. Banisadr had to flee the country and later helped lead resistance to the new dictatorship. After that, Khomeini no longer needed even the pretense of the country’s freedom. What he said went, and anyone who did not like it had to face the unforgiving Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp and other murderous internal security groups. As the decade proceeded, purges turned into executions, and in 1988, the regime murdered thousands of its political prisoners. Several countries condemned this, but did nothing about it. The United Nations (UN) condemned it, too, but as is par for the course with the UN, its condemnation had zero impact. Since then, every credible measure, such as Freedom House’s and the World Justice Project’s ranking of countries, lists Iran as one of the least free countries on earth; something that daily headlines confirm again and again.
Bangladesh might not be there yet, but it appears to be traveling the same road. Like Islamist Iran, Bangladesh has banned popular parties. Like it or not, the Awami League was the Bangladeshi party with the most popular support for decades, and the current government has signaled that there is to be no compromise or any flexibility regarding that party. It turned Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) into a political body by freeing convicted terrorists and ending its role in prosecuting terrorists who fought against Bangladeshi freedom. The Yunus regime instead prosecuted its own and Jamaat’s political opponents. And for those who are okay with just demonizing the Awami League, history shows clearly that accepting this precedent only gives government and power brokers the power to use it against anyone they see as standing in the way of their power grabs. This is what happened in Iran, and is consistent with Bangladeshi history. The interim government first lifted the Awami League imposed ban on Jamaat e-Islami before then banning the Awami League itself: a clear message to Bangladeshis and the world that it is not interested in freedom or facts, but on maintaining power for itself and its allies. Bad message that reflects very poorly on the state of Bangladeshi democracy today. And if that is not a big enough parallel between Islamist Iran and today’s Bangladeshi government, recall that the former purged religious and other minorities from government and education. The same is happening in today’s Bangladesh. For those Hindus and others not yet removed, they operate under the constant threat of their bosses using any pretext they have to fire them (and I have experience with specific cases in that regard). Not much more than a year post-coup, Bangladesh is taking a road eerily similar to the one taken by Iran.
It is also clear, however, that Bangladesh was born with democratic ideals and out of a desire for the freedom that Bengalis never had under Pakistan. There are several ways that Bangladesh can reverse its dangerous course and prevent an Islamist takeover or at least continued domination.
1. Most importantly, lift the ban on the Awami League and do not ban other parties. Free elections cannot exist if voters are not allowed to vote for parties and candidates they support—whether it is the Awami League or Jamaat. Let all parties participate in the free market of ideas, and let the people decide who should lead and who should remain out of power.
2. All international observers and credible organizations have been consistent over decades that previous Bangladeshi elections were not free and fair. One side controlled the ballot boxes and counted the votes, and opposition parties and candidates were harassed or worse, often by law enforcement or government-affiliated groups. Make sure that does not happen by giving Bangladesh’s Election Commission (EC) real power to monitor the vote and counting, and to take action to prevent or expose fraud. For this to happen, the EC will have to contain members of opposing parties and factions, and their actions and deliberations must be transparent, perhaps by press being present during them.
3. Enforce the law to prevent violence and intimidation, both in the lead up to elections and in daily life. Since its birth, Bangladesh has struggled, usually unsuccessfully, to maintain the rule of law. At national and local levels, powerful people have been able to engage in illegal activities with impunity. Minorities, especially but not only Hindus, have been attacked with law enforcement refusing to prosecute the criminals or uphold Bangladeshi values of freedom for all to practice their faiths freely. The rule of law means the same enforcement for people friendly to current rulers and those opposed to them; the same for people you like and people you don’t like.
Under the interim government today, Bangladesh has continued moving closer to China and Pakistan and away from the coalition of democratic nations. I think former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was smart in maintaining relations with both factions, both the United States and China; any government of Bangladesh should act in the best interests of its own people, which maintaining cordial relations with both side does. The current government’s moves away from other democracies, including India, has not gone unnoticed; perhaps I’m wrong, but I believe Bangladeshis want to be counted among free and democratic peoples.
Historically, Islamist governments have been abject failures. When Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood put that philosophy over the people’s needs, he brought disaster to Egypt and was overthrown in a popular revolt. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has brought the nation to the brink of collapse, and they are looking for ways to modify their rule in order to avoid becoming a failed state. Nor is Yemen under the Houthis anything other than an oppressive and deadly hell hole of smoking ruins. Then there is Iran. Do Bangladeshis want to live like the people of Iran: bellicose in its rhetoric but unable to defend itself; an economy in free fall; a power grid that cannot operate most days; women executed for not wearing their veils in the way the government wants; and a people running out of water due in large part, not to a draught that affects the entire region, but to mismanagement, corruption, and the waste of resources into misbegotten nuclear and other programs. Just this week, the government announced that it will not be able to exist in Tehran and might have to evacuate.
Or do the people of Bangladesh want to see the calls for freedom that animated the 2024 revolt realized in free and fair 2026 elections, not controlled by Islamists or others, and to elect a Prime Minister not a “Supreme Leader”?
Dr. Richard L. Benkin is an American scholar and a geopolitical expert.
