Bangladesh will vote on February 12 to elect a new Parliament, the country’s Election Commission said Thursday. This will be the first national election since a deadly student-led uprising forced then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee to India last year.

An interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has since governed the Muslim-majority South Asian country of 173 million people, but has been grappling with rising discontent over delays in promised reforms, fuelling fresh protests and political division.

A national referendum on implementing the so-called ‘July Charter’, a state reform plan drafted in the aftermath of the unrest, will also be held on the same day, Chief Election Commissioner AMM Nasir Uddin said in a national broadcast.

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