DHAKA, Dec 24 (Reuters) – The Bangladesh Nationalist Party aims to gather five million supporters to welcome its leader Tarique Rahman home from nearly 17 years in exile on Thursday, a show of strength as he emerges as a leading contender for prime minister in February elections.

Rahman, 60, is the son of ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and acting chairman of the party that is widely expected to come out on top in the parliamentary vote set for February 12.

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Rahman’s decision to return is driven by both political developments and personal circumstances. His mother has been seriously ill for months, prompting what party insiders describe as an urgent trip home.

‘DEFINING POLITICAL MOMENT’, BNP SAYS

BNP leaders said they are preparing for what they call an “unprecedented” gathering in the capital, aiming to draw more than five million supporters along the route from the airport to the reception venue.

“This will be a defining political moment,” senior BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said, adding that security arrangements are being closely coordinated with authorities to ensure order.

Rahman has lived in London since 2008 as he faced multiple criminal convictions at home including for money laundering and in a case related to a plot to assassinate Hasina. He was, however, acquitted of all charges after Hasina’s removal, clearing the legal barriers that had delayed his return.

BNP officials said he will travel directly from the airport to the reception venue before visiting his mother.

YOUTH PARTY WELCOMES HIS RETURN

Rahman’s return comes as the Muslim-majority South Asian nation of nearly 175 million people enters a sensitive election period under an interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. The vote is widely viewed as crucial to restoring political stability after nearly two years of turmoil.

The National Citizen Party (NCP), which emerged from the youth protest movement that toppled Hasina, said it views Rahman’s return positively.

“Tarique Rahman was forced into exile under severe pressure and threats, so his homecoming carries symbolic weight,” said Khan Muhammad Mursalin, an NCP spokesperson. “His arrival will undoubtedly energize party leaders and supporters … On the path to democracy, we will stand with him.”

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Nasry Asfura has won the 2025 Honduras presidential election, delivering victory for the right-of-center National Party of Honduras (PNH) and shifting the political landscape of Central America. 

The 40.3% to 39.5% result in favor of Asfura over Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla arrived after the vote-counting process had been delayed for days by technical glitches and claims by other candidates of vote-rigging. Rixi Moncada, the candidate of the ruling LIBRE party, came in a distant third.

The results of the race were so tight and the ballot processing system was so chaotic, that about 15% of the tally sheets, which accounted for hundreds of thousands of ballots, had to be counted by hand to determine the winner.

Two electoral council members and one deputy approved the results despite disputes over the razor-thin difference in the vote. A third council member, Marlon Ocha, was not in a video declaring the winner.

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“Honduras: I am ready to govern. I will not let you down,” Asfura said on X after the results were confirmed.

The head of the Honduran Congress, though, rejected the results and described them as an “electoral coup.”

“This is completely outside the law,” Congress President Luis Redondo of the LIBRE party said on X. “It has no value.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Asfura on X, saying the U.S. “looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”

Initially, preliminary results on Monday showed Asfura, 67, had won 41% of the ballot, inching him ahead of Nasralla, 72, who had around 39%.

THE RESULTS ARE IN: 2025’S BIGGEST WINNER AND LOSERS FROM THE OFF-YEAR ELECTIONS

On Tuesday, the website set up to share vote tallies with the public experienced technical problems and crashed, according to The Associated Press.

With the candidates only having 515 votes between them, a virtual tie and site crash saw President Trump share a post on Truth Social.

“Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election,” he wrote. “If they do, there will be hell to pay!”

By Thursday, Asfura had 40.05%, about 8,000 votes ahead of Nasralla, who had 39.75%, according to Reuters, with the latter then calling for an investigation.

“I publicly denounce that today, at 3:24 a.m., the screen went dark and an algorithm, similar to the one used in 2013, changed the data,” Nasralla wrote on social media, adding 1,081,000 votes for his party were transferred to Asfura, while 1,073,000 votes for Asfura’s National Party were attributed to him.

FORMER MISS VENEZUELA BLAMES ‘SOCIALISM AND OPEN BORDERS’ FOR HER COUNTRY’S DEVASTATING COLLAPSE

Asfura, nicknamed “Tito,” is a former mayor of Tegucigalpa and had entered the race with a reputation for leadership and focus on infrastructure, public order and efficiency.

His win ended a polarized campaign season, with one of the defining moments of the contest being Asfura’s endorsement by Trump.

“If he [Asfura] doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Nov. 28.

Before the start of voting Nov. 29, Trump also said he would pardon former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who once led the same party as Asfura. Hernandez is serving a 45-year sentence for helping drug traffickers.

VENEZUELAN NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER MARÍA CORINA MACHADO DEDICATES AWARD TO TRUMP FOR ‘DECISIVE SUPPORT’

In the end, the election saw the defeat of centrist former vice president of Honduras, Nasralla and left-wing Moncada, 60, who served under President Xiomara Castro. 

Moncada, a prominent lawyer, financier and former minister of national defense, focused on institutional reform and social equity.

Nasralla, a high-profile television personality turned politician, mobilized a base but fell short of converting his popularity into a winning coalition.  

He was focusing on cleaning up Honduran corruption. The Honduran presidential race was also impacted by accusations of fraud.

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In addition to electing a new president, Hondurans voted for a new Congress and hundreds of local positions.

Reuters contributed to this report.

European Union officials have defended landmark digital rules on Wednesday, after the Trump administration went after what it described as a machine created to fuel censorship and imposed sanctions — including a visa ban — on a former EU Commissioner.

The European Commission said in a statement it “strongly condemns” the US decision, stressing that freedom of expression is “a fundamental right in Europe and a shared core value with the United States across the democratic world”.

Brussels insisted that the EU has a sovereign right to regulate its digital market in line with its values, adding that its rules are applied “fairly and without discrimination”.

The Commission said, if needed, it would “respond swiftly and decisively our regulatory autonomy against unjustified measures” from the US side.

Digital rules have become a point of tension between Washington and Brussels, both accusing each other of politicising what should be standard market rules for companies operating in the EU.

That friction was exacerbated after the US published a controversial national security strategy earlier this month, arguing that Europe faces the demise of civilisation unless it radically changes course.

In the document, the Trump administration said that Europe was drowning under illegal and excessive regulation and censorship.

The document was built on a premise laid out by US Vice President JD Vance at the start of the year, during a speech at the Munich Security Conference, in which he argued that internal rules posed the most significant risk to the EU.

He referred to EU Commissioners as “commissars” and argued that foreign interference is often used to censor content.

The EU denies that and insists that rules are applied fairly.

France pushes back against US over ‘coercion’

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron accused Washington of intimidation after the visa ban on Breton, the former European Commissioner appointed by Macron himself, saying it amounts to “coercion aimed at undermining European digital sovereignty”.

The French president, who has long campaigned for strategic autonomy, said that digital rules governing the EU market are decided by Europeans and Europeans alone.

Macron said he had spoken with Breton over the phone after his ban was announced and “thanked him for his significant contribution in the service of Europe.”

“We will stand firm against pressure and will protect Europeans,” the French president wrote in a post on X.

Breton, who served as European Commissioner for the Internal Market under Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, played a key role in drafting the Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to hold social media and large online platforms accountable for the content they publish.

Under the DSA, digital companies can be fined up to 6% of their annual worldwide turnover for non-compliance, with specific penalties for various violations.

Fines and tariffs as leverage for both sides

Earlier this month, the European Commission slapped a €120 million fine on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, invoking the DSA for the first time.

The fine triggered a furious response from the tech billionaire, who called for the abolition of the EU.

While fines are not uncommon and multiple US governments have called out what they believe is a targeted effort to penalise innovation made in America, the Trump administration has been more aggressive in its tone and countermeasures.

Washington has indicated it would provide tariff relief only for key European sectors, such as steel and aluminium, if the EU agreed to ease the implementation of digital rules.

For the EU, the idea is a red line, as it would undermine its right to set policy independently of the US government.

After being hit by a wave of tariffs amounting to 15% on most European products over the summer, Brussels insisted the deal was the best of all options on the table as it would provide certainty for business with a single duty rate and reiterated policy independence was assured as digital rules had been left out of the negotiation.

With its latest actions, the Trump administration has suggested it may not be enough.