By Krishna N. Das and Ruma Paul
NEW DELHI/DHAKA, July 23 (Reuters) – Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin, a former ally of ousted premier Sheikh Hasina, will resign on Friday halfway through his term, his spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday, days after Hasina said she was returning home from exile to surrender following a court conviction.
The resignation of Shahabuddin, the head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, would leave Hasina with no allies in high office five months before her planned return. Her Awami League party is banned, and many of its leaders and activists have been jailed or gone into hiding since a deadly student-led uprising toppled her government in 2024.
Shahabuddin’s spokesperson did not give a reason for his resignation, but three sources familiar with the matter said the government had pressed him to step aside because of his longstanding ties to Hasina after the former premier announced in an interview with Reuters that she planned to return to Bangladesh.
Her return is expected to test the government’s efforts to restore stability in the mainly Muslim nation of 173 million people, a major garment-exporting economy, after two years of turmoil.
Spokespeople for Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, who won a landslide victory in February’s election, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“According to the Constitution, the president’s resignation becomes effective upon submission of a signed letter to the speaker,” Shahabuddin’s press secretary Sarwar Alam said, confirming an earlier Reuters report.
“The president will tender his resignation once the speaker returns from Thailand tomorrow.”
Once Shahabuddin tenders his resignation, Bangladesh’s Constitution automatically makes the speaker the interim president until a new president is elected, Alam said. An email and calls to parliament speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad’s office went unanswered outside office hours.
PRESSURE FROM DHAKA
Last November, Bangladesh’s war crimes court sentenced Hasina to death in absentia for ordering a crackdown on the uprising which, according to a U.N. report, killed nearly 1,400 people. From exile, she has denied the charges against her.
News of Hasina’s planned return from India has intensified public pressure on Rahman’s government to remove the last of her allies from high office.
Shahabuddin’s role is largely ceremonial, with executive power resting with the prime minister and cabinet.
The role took on greater weight after the uprising forced Hasina to flee to New Delhi in August 2024, leaving a political vacuum with no other elected official in power.
Shahabuddin, 76, had been elected unopposed for a five-year term in 2023 as a nominee of Hasina’s Awami League party, which is now banned.
He informed Prime Minister Rahman of his decision to resign on Tuesday, according to one of the sources. All three sources declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.
Shahabuddin did not respond to repeated calls and messages for comment. He told Reuters in December he was planning to resign after the February election, after being sidelined by the previous interim government that had replaced Hasina’s administration.
Hasina told Reuters she and senior party colleagues planned to return from exile around December and surrender. Before it was banned, the Awami League was Bangladesh’s largest political party, and she retains pockets of support.
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das in New Delhi and Ruma Paul in Dhaka; Editing by Gareth Jones and Sanjeev Miglani)
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