Bangladesh PM Hasina's Rule Toppled After 15 Years

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned from office and fled to India following weeks of protests in which at least 300 people have been killed, according to media reports. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has today been named the interim leader of the country, backed by student protest leaders and the opposition.

The protests which have rocked Bangladesh over the past weeks have been dubbed the Gen-Z revolution, following what started out as student-led demonstrations decrying a civil service job quota that had set aside 30 percent of government jobs for relatives of veterans of the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. The protests were met by a deadly government crackdown, as well as a curfew and internet blocks, galvanizing a wider pushback against Hasina’s rule. On August 5, she was ousted from office and left for India via helicopter.

As the following chart shows, Hasina first became prime minister of the country in 1996 before succeeding a second time in 2008 and being elected three more times between 2014 and 2024, despite boycotts from the opposition and allegations of vote-rigging.

While Hasina’s rule saw the strengthening of Bangladesh’s economy, reaching a GDP growth of 7.2 percent in 2022, she is widely criticized for having become dictatorial with a reign known for human rights violations. The 2013 tragedy of the Rana Plaza building collapse took place during her tenure, where more than 1,000 textile workers were killed, drawing global attention to the country’s poor working conditions and low wages in the sector. Throughout her years in power, crackdowns on dissent led to the arrest of opposition members and in 2024, Bangladesh slid two notches on World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to rank 165 out of 180 nations.