American Think Tanks Flags Power Gap: Gen Z Is Ousting Leaders But Losing At The Ballot Box
WASHINGTON, DC -Citing the recent election result in Bangladesh, a report has highlighted how Gen-Z protests, which have proliferated in various regions, have failed to turn demonstrations into political success at the ballot box or in policymaking.
Writing for the American think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Joshua Kurlantzick, Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia, noted that the Bangladesh protests that ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 were also among the first major Gen-Z protest successes in Asia. They inspired similar efforts in Nepal, where demonstrations toppled a prime minister, Indonesia, where protests stalled, and other places.
Their impact, Kurlantzick wrote, reached as far as Madagascar, other parts of Africa, and the Caribbean, and was seen as part of a worldwide trend of Gen-Z political uprisings, demonstrating that Gen-Z was going to make its impact felt on politics everywhere.
“But while Gen-Z protests have proliferated, they have failed to turn demonstrations into political success at the ballot box, or in policymaking,” wrote Kurlantzick. He cited recent outcomes in Thailand, where the People’s Party, which enjoyed the most support among Gen-Z voters, was crushed in national elections, and Japan, where the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the ultimate establishment party, fended off challenges from a range of Gen-Z-oriented new parties to win a massive victory.
“So, too, in Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina is gone, but the massive winner of the election was not the party started by young leaders of the protests, or any other reform-minded party, but the BNP, the other half of the long-ruling duopoly. The BNP, which won by a landslide, has said all the right things, but many Bangladeshis do not trust it,” he added.
The National Citizen Party (NCP), founded by the student leaders of the 2024 protests, won only six of the 30 seats it contested in parliament, “a very weak showing,” Kurlantzick reckoned.
He noted that by putting the BNP back in power, Bangladeshis have voted overwhelmingly for major constitutional changes aimed at safeguarding democracy, broadening economic and political opportunities, and curbing corruption.
The question now is whether the BNP, set to dominate parliament, will push these reforms through. Whether the party acts or not will reveal if it has truly changed. If it cannot, Kurlantzick said, Bangladeshi politics will remain mired in the same problems that existed before.
“Coming in second was the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, which attempted an image makeover for the election but has in the past been linked to deadly political violence and is expressly misogynist. And even though this election was, on Election Day, free and fair, there was a spate of seemingly political killings and other violence leading up to the vote, as has happened too many times before in Bangladesh,” he added. (IANS)
