In streets and movements, Bangladesh’s women remain visible and vocal. In classrooms, factories, hospitals, media rooms and moments of national crisis, their presence is undeniable. Yet as the country moves closer to another national election in February, the electoral landscape tells a very different story. Here, women appear to fade. Their numbers shrink, their voices weaken, and their leadership is quietly pushed to the margins. This contradiction is not a sentimental concern but a serious political and democratic warning.
For decades, politically, the country once stood as a global example by sustaining female leadership at the highest level of the executive for years. Legal reforms, reserved parliamentary seats, and party committee quotas created the impression that women’s political participation had moved beyond symbolism. When power is contested directly, women are often the first to be excluded, pushed aside by entrenched male dominance.
However, the Representation of the People Order (RPO) mandates that political parties reserve at least 33 percent of positions in their central and party committees for women. In practice, most major parties have repeatedly failed to meet this requirement. Although the Election Commission extended the deadline for compliance to 2030, non-compliance remains the norm, with parties frequently citing the alleged absence of qualified female leaders.
The Women’s Political Rights Forum has described this as a self-reinforcing crisis, where the failure to empower women is repeatedly used to justify their continued exclusion, thereby preserving the status quo. This pattern becomes even clearer in electoral nominations. The July National Charter 2025 requires political parties to nominate at least five percent women candidates in parliamentary elections, with a long-term goal of increasing that figure to 33 percent. Yet Election Commission data shows that of the 51 parties contesting the election, 30 did not nominate a single woman.
The statistics from major parties underline the depth of the problem. BNP submitted 328 nomination forms, but only 10 were from women, amounting to just 3.02 percent. Jamaat e Islami submitted 276 nominations without including a single female candidate, despite claiming that women make up 40 percent of its party committees.
Overall, of the 2,568 candidates contesting the election, only 109 are women, representing just 4.24 percent of the total. Among them, 72 were nominated by political parties, while 37 are running as independents. These figures clearly show how far political practice lags behind public commitments.
Does this pattern expose a deeper reality where women are still viewed as electoral liabilities rather than political assets?
The nomination scrutiny process further reveals how structural disadvantages operate. Former Additional Secretary of the Election Commission Secretariat Jasmine Tuli explained to the media that many disqualifications stem from strict legal requirements. Candidates must fully comply with the law, and there are no special exemptions for women if documentation or procedural requirements are not met. Yet Tuli also noted that legal compliance is only part of the problem. Beyond formal rules, there is a systemic lack of support from political parties, making it far more difficult for women to meet these requirements in the first place. Without guidance, legal assistance and institutional backing, women are left to navigate complex processes largely on their own.
A party-based analysis highlights stark disparities. Independent women candidates formed the largest group, with 42 applicants, yet they also faced the highest rejection rate. Only 13 were ultimately approved, while 29 were eliminated, meaning nearly two thirds failed to pass scrutiny. Independent women face additional obstacles because they lack party protection against harassment, intimidation and social backlash. Many also struggle to collect voter signatures due to conservative attitudes and religious objections to women engaging in public political campaigning. This confirms long standing concerns that contesting elections without party backing leaves women particularly vulnerable to documentation hurdles, verification challenges and resource constraints.
Harassment further compounds these barriers. Women candidates report facing abuse at multiple levels. During offline campaigns, many encounters verbal attacks, character assassination and intimidation. On social media, abusive comments, threats, false allegations and coordinated trolling create serious emotional distress and security concerns. Such hostile environments discourage many women from continuing their electoral journeys even before polling day arrives.
Ironically, this exclusion contrasts sharply with women’s roles during political movements and crises. In moments of upheaval, women often emerge as organisers, mobilisers and moral anchors. Their participation is welcomed when power structures are being challenged. Yet once politics shifts back into formal electoral competition, those same women are sidelined.
I would argue that the contraction of women’s leadership is not merely a setback for gender justice but a strategic failure for democracy itself. When representation shrinks, democracy thins out. In Bangladesh, this is not an abstract concern but a demographic reality staring us in the face. With 96.693 men for every 100 women and women comprising nearly half of the population, sidelining them is not exclusion but self-sabotage. The rise of female headed households to 18.9 percent tells a deeper story: women are already managing risk, carrying economic responsibility, and exercising leadership in everyday life. What remains conspicuously absent is not capacity, but the political imagination required to translate this lived leadership into formal power.
Yet despite these social shifts, entrenched norms and restrictive political practices continue to curtail women’s visibility and authority in decision making spaces. The consequences are systemic. Policies grow less responsive, public trust frays, and political institutions steadily lose legitimacy. When women are confined to symbolic participation through reserved seats rather than empowered through direct electoral competition, their ability to shape laws, priorities, and the national agenda remains fundamentally constrained.
The writer is a poet, litterateur, and political analyst
