Nomination papers for both the ruling party’s and the opposition alliance’s presidential candidates have been declared valid. Voting will take place on August 20. Under the preliminary arithmetic, BNP candidate Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has the backing of 247 MPs, while Colonel (retd) Oli Ahmed, candidate of the Jamaat-led 11-party alliance, has 90.
Given this numerical gap, there is effectively no uncertainty over the outcome — Mirza Fakhrul’s victory is nearly guaranteed. Even so, the vote carries political significance. That significance lies not in the result but in questions such as how many votes Oli Ahmed receives, whether the opposition alliance’s 90 votes hold firm, and which way MPs outside the two camps lean.
Nomination papers submitted for the presidency were scrutinized today, Sunday. The Election Commission declared valid the nomination papers of both BNP’s recently former secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and LDP Chairman Oli Ahmed. Candidates have until Tuesday to withdraw their candidacy, but neither is expected to do so. As a result, voting between the two candidates will take place on August 20 in the National Parliament’s chamber, with MPs as the voters.
President Md Sahabuddin resigned from his post on July 24. Under the constitution, when the presidency becomes vacant due to resignation, an election must be held within 90 days.
Vote distribution matters more than the numbers
The 13th National Parliament currently has 349 members, including those in reserved women’s seats. BNP holds 247 seats. The Jamaat-led 11-party alliance holds 90. BNP’s declared winning candidate in Chattogram-4, Aslam Chowdhury, could not take his oath after a court ruling voided his candidacy, leaving the seat vacant.
Among the 12 members outside the two main political camps, three belong to BNP allies — Gono Songhoti Andolon, Gono Odhikar Parishad, and the Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP). One member belongs to Islami Andolan Bangladesh. The remaining eight are independents, most of whom were at one point associated with BNP politics.
Given this arithmetic, while Mirza Fakhrul’s win is nearly certain, the remaining 12 votes carry political weight. If Oli Ahmed can draw votes from independents or Islami Andolan, the opposition alliance can present it as a political achievement. Conversely, if Mirza Fakhrul secures votes from outside BNP, the ruling party can signal broader political acceptance of him.
Oli Ahmed’s primary goal, therefore, isn’t becoming president — it’s how many votes he can secure beyond his own alliance’s base while keeping that base intact.
Open voting, Article 70 dispute
In the presidential election, MPs vote openly. Ballot papers must include not only the name of the preferred candidate but also the voting member’s name and constituency number, making it possible to identify who voted for whom.
National Parliament Chief Whip Nurul Islam Moni said on August 11 that Article 70 of the constitution would remain in effect even for the presidential election — that any member voting against the party’s decision would lose their parliamentary seat.
Article 70 of the constitution states that a member of parliament elected as a party’s candidate will lose their seat if they resign from the party or vote against it in parliament. However, since the presidential election is a separate constitutional process conducted by the Election Commission, legal opinion differs on whether Article 70 applies to it. The Presidential Election Act contains no provision for invalidating a legally cast vote that goes against a party’s decision.
Political sources say that regardless of the legal interpretation, current political realities make it highly unlikely that any MP would vote outside their party’s position.
The last contested presidential vote took place in 1991. That parliament included members from BNP, Awami League, Jatiya Party, Jamaat-e-Islami, the Communist Party of Bangladesh, and several other parties. Of 330 total members, 66 did not vote. Nearly all members of the current parliament are divided between the two political camps — ruling and opposition — making the likelihood of significant vote deviation even lower this time.
A political message in Oli’s candidacy
Oli Ahmed is not merely an opposition candidate. He is a former BNP leader, a close associate of Ziaur Rahman, and a Bir Bikram-decorated freedom fighter. He left the military to join BNP in 1980 and served as communications minister in Khaleda Zia’s first government.
In other words, Oli Ahmed, once firmly within BNP’s ranks, is now standing against BNP’s candidate. This symbolic dimension of his candidacy matters for the Jamaat-led opposition alliance.
According to political sources, amid longstanding controversy over Jamaat’s role in the Liberation War, the alliance is seeking to send a distinct political message by fielding a decorated freedom fighter as its presidential candidate. Even before the national election, Jamaat had used Oli Ahmed’s presence to try to explain its position on the Liberation War’s history. That same political thread continues in the presidential election.
Sources close to the alliance say LDP joined the Jamaat-led alliance ahead of the 13th National Parliament election based on assurances that Oli Ahmed would be nominated for president. As a result, fielding him despite a certain loss serves both to honor that political promise and to signal the opposition’s presence against the majority.
Questions also remain over how durable opposition unity will prove after the national election. The presidential election will serve as a test of that unity. If Oli Ahmed secures all 90 of the alliance’s votes, the opposition can present it as a message of unity. If the vote count falls short, it will expose cracks within the alliance.
Mirza Fakhrul led the party for a long period as BNP’s secretary general. During Khaleda Zia’s imprisonment and Tareque Rahman’s time abroad, he was one of the party’s principal faces through difficult times. By nominating him for president, BNP is moving a long-tested, veteran leader from active party politics into a different role within the state’s constitutional framework.
Although the outcome of the presidential election is nearly certain, the August 20 vote is therefore not a meaningless formality. Questions such as how many votes Oli receives beyond Fakhrul’s win, whether the opposition alliance’s 90 votes hold firm, which way votes from outside the two camps go, and whether any vote deviation occurs will become far more significant in the politics that follows the vote.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report