Bangladesh’s President Mohammed Shahabuddin will be stepping down from the office this Friday, meaning that former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will have no other allies in high office just months ahead of her expected return to the country.

Hasina’s Awami League party was banned following a deadly student uprising which overthrew her government in 2024. Since then many of the leaders and activists have been jailed or compelled to disappear. Shahabuddin’s official reason for retirement isn’t mentioned, but sources said the government had forced him to quit because of his close relations with the previous government’s premier.

Hasina has recently announced that she and her senior party members would come back from exile in India around December to surrender, which gave more impetus to the pressure. She is likely to put a strain on current government attempts to restore stability to the country of 173 million people and a key fibre exporter in the world.

The Prime Minister’s Office under Tarique Rahman who was elected to a landslide victory in February has yet to make a formal comment on the president’s resignation.

Constitutional Transition and Background of the Crisis

The release from the President’s Office (Bangabhaban) press secretary states that the resignation can be deemed to be effective after a resignation letter is submitted to the Speaker of parliament with his signature. The official resignation will be made upon return of the speaker from his visit to Thailand.

The Bangladesh President will automatically become the speaker of the country’s Parliament, Hafiz Uddin Ahmad, until a new head of state is formally elected under the constitution of the Government of Bangladesh.

Political tension continues to be strong in Dhaka. Last November, it was revealed that a war crimes court in Bangladesh had sentenced Hasina to death in absence for allegedly launching a brutal crackdown on the uprising of 2024. The United Nations estimated that almost 1,400 people had been killed in the nationwide unrest. Exiled from New Delhi, Hasina has put her body on record in multiple instances that these allegations are untrue.

While the offices of President and Prime Minister are mostly for formality, the role of the president became crucial in the wake of Hasina’s exit from the country in August 2024, causing a temporary political void. Shahabuddin, 76, was unopposed as Awami League’s nominee in 2023. According to sources, on Tuesday, he had told Prime Minister Rahman of his resignation from the previous administration, thereby disclosing the end of the political influence of the previous administration.