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Dhaka, Bangladesh – Bangladesh’s February 12 election has delivered a landslide victory for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which will now form the first elected government since the July 2024 mass uprising that toppled former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League party.

While the election, from which the former governing Awami League was banned, has been viewed as something of a litmus test for political change in Bangladesh, observers say the overwhelming election of the BNP, one of just two parties which have held power continuously since independence in 1971, shows Bangladeshis may prefer to stick with what they know.

On Friday, the Election Commission released unofficial results showing the BNP winning 209 seats out of 297 already announced; Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami with 68; the National Citizen Party (NCP) with six; smaller parties, a handful of seats; and independents with seven seats.

In all, 299 of the 300 elected seats in parliament were up for grabs in this election. Turnout was about 60 percent.

Registered voters also voted in a referendum to approve constitutional reforms, with just more than 60 percent voting “yes” for the July National Charter outlining those reforms.

Final official results are still pending, but Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, BNP’s secretary-general, hailed the sweeping election victory as evidence that the BNP is “a party of the people”. The party expects to form a government on Sunday.

On Friday night, Jamaat-e-Islami, the BNP’s main opponent in this election, had yet to concede defeat, saying it was not “satisfied” with the vote count and raising “serious questions about the integrity of the results process”.

Analysts fear this may signal a return to the confrontational politics of the past in Bangladesh.

A vote for familiarity, experience

Asif Mohammad Shahan, professor of development studies at Dhaka University, said the result showed most people would rather opt to have a known political group in power at times of uncertainty.

“Voters choosing BNP means they ultimately chose a familiar political force. They appeared to prefer a party whose governing experience they already knew, despite reservations about some of its past practices,” he told Al Jazeera.

Ultimately, the result indicates that the people of Bangladesh have chosen to revert to institutional politics following the turbulence of 2024 rather than embrace any sort of ideological shift as represented by the student-led National Citizen Party, which joined forces with Jamaat to contest this election.

Political historian Mohiuddin Ahmad told Al Jazeera that this election was almost a “repetition of the 2001 election” when the BNP surged in popularity and won 193 parliament seats, ahead of the previously governing Awami League, which secured just 62.

The real litmus test, now, he said, will be to see how well the opposing parties cooperate in the new parliament. “Parliamentary democracy becomes successful through cooperation between the treasury bench and the opposition bench,” he told Al Jazeera.

But can Bangladesh steer away from the confrontational politics of the past?

Two competing mandates

Political reform is far from off the agenda, however, and this may ultimately be what drags the nation back to those bad old days, experts say.

On Thursday, Bangladesh also held a referendum on the July National Charter, a blueprint for constitutional reforms emerging from the 2024 uprising and aimed at restructuring the state’s governance architecture. It has been overseen by a caretaker government in place since the ousting of Hasina.

The charter proposes a new two-chamber parliament, new procedures for appointing constitutional bodies such as the Election Commission, and strengthening institutional checks to reduce winner-takes-all executive dominance.

It also outlines broader constitutional reforms, including expanded fundamental rights and limits on unilateral constitutional amendments.

With approximately 60 percent voting “yes” to it on Thursday, the referendum creates a parallel reform mandate alongside BNP’s parliamentary majority.

These two mandates may not fully align, Shahan said.

The BNP was sceptical about the July National Charter referendum for months during the transitional government, at times signalling a “no”, until party chief Tarique Rahman publicly endorsed a “yes” vote on January 30 – something the main opposition Jamaat alliance was eager to point out during campaigning.

Therefore, “the BNP’s manifesto, to a large extent, conflicts with the July Charter”, Shahan pointed out.

During campaigning, the BNP pledged to back the implementation of the charter if voters approved it in the referendum. But Ahmad noted that the BNP’s earlier dissent on parts of the charter means the party may not feel obligated to implement every single reform in it.

In particular, the BNP may be opposed to proposals for proportional representation and the new design of an upper house, which, it has argued, could dilute large parliamentary majorities under the current electoral system.

The scale of its election win indicates that the public expects the BNP will uphold its campaign pledges, particularly on corruption and institutional reform. Therefore, any decision not to pursue specific reforms will require public explanation, Ahmed said.

But the sheer size of the BNP’s majority could make it easier to proceed unchallenged by a weak opposition.

“Those who come with a majority naturally have much greater capacity to work on policy implementation and reform,” political analyst Dilara Choudhury said. But such dominance in parliament also means less accountability.

Shahan warned, “There is a serious concern that, based on political costs, we could return to confrontational politics again.”

The Awami League factor

The landslide result also reshapes Bangladesh’s party system at a time when the Awami League is absent. Following Hasina’s brutal crackdown on protesters in July 2024, which killed about 1,400 people, the Awami League was banned from standing in this election.

Some observers have criticised this move, saying it would have been more credible to allow voters to reject the party through democratic means by refusing to vote for it.

As Bangladesh politics were previously dominated by the BNP and Awami League, its absence has also created the possibility of an asymmetrical political field dominated, now, by a single major party, analysts say.

The results of this election appear to show that this may be true.

The BNP has limited incentive to facilitate the Awami League’s return to political life, Shahan noted. But he cautioned that a failure to deliver reforms or effective governance could reopen space for the Awami League’s revival if voters become disillusioned with both traditional and reformist actors.

For now, according to Shahan, post-election stability will depend on two factors: whether opposition parties accept the results and participate constructively in parliament, and whether the BNP uses its strong mandate to pursue inclusive reforms rather than majoritarian consolidation.

A diplomatic balancing act

The landslide result places the BNP at the centre of both domestic restructuring and regional realignment in the wake of the 2024 uprising, said Shahab Enam Khan, geopolitical analyst and professor of international relations at Jahangirnagar University in Dhaka.

This election will have “immediate implications” for the region, he added.

Particularly, Bangladesh’s relationship with India, where Hasina remains in exile, much to the anger of many in Bangladesh who would like to see her extradited to face the death penalty handed to her by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in Bangladesh in November last year, for ordering her forces to fire on protesters in 2024.

“The Sheikh Hasina factor will always remain … extradition will remain an agenda, but in reality it may not happen given her relationship with political circles in Delhi,” Khan said.

“This will be a government which will receive unprecedented support from all the global powers, including the regional neighbours,” Khan told Al Jazeera. The United States is likely to continue its engagement initiated under the interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, while China will remain a key partner given its market-oriented approach to Bangladesh, regardless of which party is in power.

As a result, relations with India – warm under Hasina’s rule – could become more transactional. “[Bangladesh’s] foreign policy will be very confident and that will make Bangladesh–India relationship much more transactional … BNP will look forward to much greater cooperation from Delhi based on reciprocity,” he said.

On Pakistan, he noted, “Islamabad will continue to have a good relationship with Dhaka because historically it had a good relationship with both BNP and Jamaat … we will see trade and investment ties improving and possibly some security cooperation.”

But balancing ties with India, China, the United States and Pakistan simultaneously may pose diplomatic challenges.

“Delhi would always be suspicious about Islamabad’s engagement and the US will always have concerns about Beijing’s engagement,” he said.

Ultimately, however, Khan said internal stability for Bangladesh will depend less on geopolitics than on governance.

“Instability can come from many corners – lack of reform delivery, weak economic performance and inflation,” he said. The evolving relationship between BNP and opposition forces, particularly Jamaat, is an unknown variable.

Above all, Bangladeshi politics must not return to the old style of repression over debate.

“If BNP resorts to the same policies that Awami League has … cracking down on the public when it comes to criticism of foreign policy … that will be massively disastrous,” he said, adding that foreign policy toward India and Pakistan “will be heavily monitored by the public”.

Whether the new government embraces a reformed constitutional order or reverts to majoritarian governance will depend on how it balances its parliamentary dominance, the July Charter reform mandate, and rising geopolitical expectations.