Student demonstrators who ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh are considering creating their own political party, protest leaders have revealed.
It comes as students continue to reject calls from Bangladesh's two main political parties for quick elections. Their movement has been hailed a ‘Gen Z revolution’, spurred by young Bangladeshis' anger at years of shrinking civil liberties.
Elections were called for once Ms Hasina, 76, fled the country earlier this month following protests sparked by Bangladesh’s supreme court that saw a series of controversial quotas on government jobs reinstated.
Rallies, which led to hundreds of deaths, erupted across the south Asian country. They were organised in opposition to a system allocating 30 per cent of government jobs to the relatives of veterans of Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971 against Pakistan.
Though initially scrapped, the quota system was recently reinstated last month, prompting fury amongst students, many of whom were subsequently killed.
Toppled by the unrest which swept the country, Ms Hasina, 76, fled Bangladesh earlier this month and landed in north-east India. Urgent concerns have since been established about a replacement of leadership.
Currently an interim government, including two students in senior positions which is headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, 84, runs the country.
In the past 30 years, Bangladesh has mostly been governed by Hasina's Awami League or the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of her rival Khaleda Zia, despite the government not considering calls from the parties to hold fresh polls as early as autumn, cabinet member Nahid Islam said.
The 26-year-old said: "The spirit of the movement was to create a new Bangladesh, one where no fascist or autocrat can return. To ensure that, we need structural reforms, which will definitely take some time."
Current leader Yunus, an economist whose microcredit programs helped lift millions globally from poverty, wields moral authority. There are doubts across the country, however, over what his administration can achieve.
As the two parties call for an election, student leaders are considering forming a political party to end the decades of duopoly.“People are really tired of the two political parties. They have trust in us," said Mahfuj Alam, a student and chair of a committee tasked with liaising between the government and social groups such as teachers and activists.
Fellow student coordinator Tahmid Chowdhury said there was a "high chance" they would form a political party rooted in secularism and free speech. They were still working out their program, however, the 24-year-old added.
He said: "We don't have any other plan that could break the binary without forming a party.”
