The new parliament will feature a significant number of new faces, with first‑time lawmakers set to take up the roles of both the leader of the House and the opposition leader for the first time in the country’s history.
The BNP, led by Tarique Rahman, has secured a two-thirds majority, while the Jamaat-e-Islami, under the leadership of Shafiqur Rahman, has emerged as the second-largest party.
Neither of the two has ever held the position of lawmaker, yet they will steer the future of the 13th parliament. Like them, more than two-thirds of the lawmakers-elect will sit in the House for the first time, according to affidavits submitted to the Election Commission.
A total of eight parties will have representation in the new parliament, with top leaders of five of the parties being elected as MPs for the first time. They include National Citizen Party leader Nahid Islam; Gano Samhati Andolon leader Zonayed Saki; and Gono Odhikar Parishad leader Nurul Haque Nur.
Parliamentary affairs expert Nizam Ahmed said it is “unprecedented” that both the leader of the House and the opposition leader will be first-time MPs.
He recalled that in the first parliament, formed through the 1973 national polls, there was officially no opposition leader. There were only seven lawmakers on the opposition bench, who were referred to as an “opposition group”.
According to parliamentary records, Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina served as the Leader of the House five times. She first assumed the role in the seventh parliament, and then for four consecutive terms from the ninth to the 12th parliament. She was first elected a lawmaker in 1986.
BNP leader Khaleda Zia, who was elected an MP for the first time in 1991, held the position of the leader of the House three times. She first assumed the role in the fifth parliament, and then in the sixth and eighth parliament.
The position was also held by leaders from other parties. Jatiya Party leaders Kazi Zafar Ahmed and Moudud Ahmed assumed the role in turn in the fourth parliament; JP leader Mizanur Rahman Choudhury in the third parliament; BNP leader Shah Azizur Rahman in the second parliament; and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and AL leader Mansur Ali in the first parliament.
Two JP leaders also held the position of the opposition leader -- GM Quader in the 12th parliament, and Raushon Ershad in the 11th and 10th parliament.
Khaleda held the position in the ninth and seventh parliament, while Hasina assumed the role in the eighth, fifth and third parliament. JSD leader ASM Abdur Rab held the position in the fourth parliament as the representative of the Combined Opposition Parties (COP), and Asaduzzman Khan, leader of an AL faction, in the second parliament.
THE 13TH PARLIAMENT
In the new parliament, at least 209 out of 297 lawmakers (70 percent) are first-timers.
The BNP, which won 209 seats, has 132 newcomers, meaning 63 percent of its parliamentary contingent will enter the House for the first time. In comparison, Jamaat has a higher ratio of first-timers than BNP -- 59 of the 68 MPs (86 percent) from the Islamist party are newcomers.
Smaller parties are entirely represented by first-time lawmakers. All six NCP lawmakers are first-timers as are the six MPs from Islami Andolon Bangladesh; Bangladesh Khelafat Majlis; Khelafat Majlish; Gono Odhikar Parishad; and Gano Samhati Andolon.
Moreover, six of the seven independent lawmakers are first-timers.
The February 12 polls were Tarique’s first-ever electoral contest. He contested two seats -- Bogura‑6 and Dhaka‑17 -- and won both.
Shafiqur vied for Moulvibazar-2 in the 2001 and 2018 elections, but lost. As Jamaat was banned from taking part in the 2018 polls, he contested Dhaka-15 with the BNP’s electoral symbol, but lost. This time, he has won the constituency.
In 2018, Saki contested Dhaka-12 on Revolutionary Workers Party ticket but suffered defeat. This time, he has won Brahmanbaria-6, using his party symbol, but with BNP’s support.
Gono Odhikar Parishad leader Nurul Haque Nur won Patuakhali-3 in his first-ever electoral contest with BNP’s backing.
Similarly, Nahid Islam, one of the front-line leaders of the July mass uprising, contested for the first time and won Dhaka-11. Five other NCP leaders also won the polls in their first attempt. They all were part of the Jamaat-led 11-party alliance.
Nizam Ahmed, also a former professor of public administration at Chittagong University, said that at the beginning, the first-time lawmakers will face some problems in following the rules of procedure of parliament.
They will have to follow the principle of “learning by doing”, as it will be difficult to learn everything at once, he said.
Prof Sk Tawfique M Haque, director of the South Asian Institute of Policy and Governance at North South University, hopes that the first-timers will be able to learn the rules of procedure quickly.
It is not correct that newcomers won’t be able to run parliament effectively. Past records show that it is the old parliamentarians who made the Jatiya Sangsad dysfunctional, he said.
“If we look at the period from 1991 to 2008, the traditional leaders were in charge -- be it in the opposition or in the government. They failed to make parliament effective. In other words, the established politicians of both parties bear this responsibility.”
Having new members in parliament creates an opportunity for change, especially because change in leadership was one of the major aspirations of the 2024 mass uprising, he observed.
If the newcomers can bring a change in mindset, debates and dialogue will take place inside parliament, and political parties will not take to the streets to air their grievances.
Tawfique believes that the surge in the number of first-time parliamentarians reflects the aspirations of the mass uprising.
“People wanted a change in old leadership. They wanted new faces, they wanted young people,” he added.
