Dhaka, Dec. 25 -- When Tarique Rahman left Bangladesh in 2008, the country was under a military-installed caretaker government born of the "1/11" intervention. An election loomed, public faith in democracy was fragile, and power rested not with elected leaders but with an unelected authority promising reform and stability.

Seventeen years later, as he prepares to return home, the parallels are unmistakable.

Bangladesh is again being run by an unelected interim government, again waiting for a general election, again gripped by uncertainty over whether democratic politics can regain its footing.

What has changed is the scale of the rupture in between - fifteen years of uninterrupted Awami League rule, followed by the July 2024 mass upris...