Bangladesh's former ruling party slams government decision to ban all its activities

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh’s former ruling party accused Sunday the interim government of “stoking division” and trampling on “democratic norms” by banning all of its activities.

The government, headed by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted following a deadly mass uprising, announced late Saturday the Awami League party can no longer be active online and elsewhere in the South Asian country under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The law affairs adviser, Asif Nazrul, said the ban would remain until a special tribunal completes a trial of the party and its leaders over the deaths of hundreds of students and other protesters during an anti-government uprising in July and August last year.

He also said the government has empowered the Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal to try any political party for serious crimes.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the country's other main political party that is headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, had previously opposed the proposal to ban the Awami League party.

However, Salahuddin Ahmed, a senior BNP leader, welcomed on Sunday the Awami League trial over the protesters' death, calling it a “delayed but timely” response to a long-standing demand by his party, reported the English-language Daily Star newspaper.

The ban is expected to formally come into effect on Monday.

The Awami League's official account on X said Sunday: “People no more feel safe under Yunus," denouncing the ban that “stoked division within society, strangled democratic norms, fueled ongoing pogrom against dissenters and strangled inclusivity, all undemocratic steps under pretext of making trial of July-August violence and reform scheme.”

The party also condemned the thousands who took to the streets for two days, including supporters of a newly formed political party by students and Islamists from various groups who later joined the protests, who called for the Awami League to be banned. It accused the gatherings of being “state-sponsored.”

Thousands of protesters had issued an ultimatum to the government to ban the Awami League party by Saturday night.

Hasina, in exile in India since Aug. 5, and many of her senior party colleagues have been accused of murdering protesters after her ouster.

The United Nations human rights office said in a report in February that up to 1,400 people may have been killed during three weeks of anti-Hasina protests. In the report of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights recommended to “refrain from political party bans that would undermine a return to a genuine multi-party democracy and effectively disenfranchise a large part of the Bangladeshi electorate."

The student-led uprising ended Hasina’s 15 years of rule.

Bangladesh's politics is now at a crossroads.

The BNP wants an election in December and has demanded a clear-cut roadmap from the interim government, which has said the election would be held either in December or June next year, depending on the extent of reforms the government has taken up.

Protesters, some who were injured in protests against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last year, demand a ban on her Awami League party, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

A man who was injured in protests against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last year, stands next to a banner that reads 'My brother is in the grave, why is the murderer in the chair?' during a protest to demand a ban on her Awami League party, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

Protesters, who were injured in protests against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last year, sit with a banner that reads 'One by one Awami League supporters should be detained and taken into custody' during a protest, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

Protesters, some who were injured in protests against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last year, demand a ban on her Awami League party, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

Protesters, some who were injured in protests against former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last year, demand a ban on her Awami League party, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, May 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

FILE - Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reviews an honor guard during a welcome ceremony at the government house in Bangkok, Thailand, Friday, April 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Democrat Hannah Pingree and Republican Bobby Charles will compete this fall to become Maine's next governor.

Pingree and Charles won their primaries Friday, after the June 9 contests advanced to ranked choice voting.

In another ranked runoff in Maine, Democrat Matt Dunlap won the nomination in the 2nd Congressional District. Dunlap will face the state’s former Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, for a seat Democrats are trying to hold in the fight for control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The ranked counts conclude a busy primary season in Maine in which Democratic voters also chose oyster farmer Graham Platner to run against longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Platner won that primary by a wide margin and it did not need to proceed to ranked choice.

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who has served since 2018, is termed out of office, creating an open field for governor in both parties. Five Democratic candidates and seven Republicans actively campaigned in the June 9 primary.

That created a scenario in which no candidate in either party broke 50% of the popular vote, leading to the ranked choice runoff, which began shortly after the election. The Democratic race was especially close, with the top four challengers within a few percentage points of each other.

Democrats chose between Pingree, the former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives; Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows; former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson; energy executive Angus King III; and former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Nirav Shah.

The Republican ballot for governor was even more crowded. Republicans chose between Charles, the former U.S. assistant secretary of state; healthcare executive Jonathan Bush; former Maine Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason; former Paris, Maine, selectman Robert Wessels; and businessmen Owen McCarthy, David Jones and Ben Midgley.

Mills ran in the primary for U.S. Senate in Maine but suspended her campaign in April.

“Throughout my two campaigns for governor and this one for Senate, what I have always loved the most is traveling across our beautiful state and getting to talk to Maine people,” Mills said on election night.

In the 2nd Congressional District, former Maine Secretary of State Dunlap, state Sen. Joe Baldacci, former U.S. Senate candidate Jordan Wood and social worker Paige Loud were on the ballot for the Democrats.

LePage, an ally of President Donald Trump, was unopposed in the Republican primary. LePage served as governor from 2010 to 2018, during which time he fashioned himself as a vocal critic of liberalism and a staunch Trump defender.

The 2nd District seat has no incumbent in the November election because Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, who has held the seat since 2018, is stepping down. Golden, a moderate who sometimes breaks from his party, said last year that he has “grown tired of the increasing incivility and plain nastiness that are now common from some elements of our American community.”

While Golden has won in the 2nd District, its voters have also shown strong support for Trump. He won an electoral vote in the district in three consecutive presidential elections.

The district is geographically large and includes much of Maine’s rural territory and logging country and some of its key fishing ports. It is expected to be among this fall's most competitive House races.

Maine has used ranked choice voting since voters approved it 10 years ago. Voters were allowed to rank the candidates on their ballot in order of preference. Under that scenario, if no candidate breaks 50% of the popular vote, the bottom finisher is eliminated, and voters’ second choices come into play. The tabulations continue until a candidate achieves a majority of the total votes.

Matt Dunlap, a Democratic candidate for Congress, speaks at a campaign event Friday, June 5, 2026, in Bar Harbor, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

FILE - Maine House majority leader Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, speaks at a rally for health care reform July 18, 2009, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

Maine Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles fields a question from moderator Steve Robinson, editor in chief of The Maine Wire, during a debate of Republican candidates for governor at Cross Insurance Center in Bangor, Maine, Tuesday, March 24, 2026. (Rich Abrahamson/The Central Maine Morning Sentinel via AP)