DHAKA: Lawmakers in Bangladesh elected ruling party veteran Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir as the country’s president on Thursday, a largely ceremonial post left vacant after the early resignation of his predecessor.

Alamgir, 78, secretary general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and local government minister, won 255 votes to become the 23rd president of the South Asian country of 170 million people.

The only other candidate, Oli Ahmed, nominated by the opposition 11-party alliance led by Jamaat-e-Islami, finished with 88 votes, Chief Election Commissioner A M M Nasir Uddin said. Before the vote, Alamgir had promised to “remain beside the people and serve them” after assuming his new role.

“I never thought that I would become the president — it is the infinite grace of the party and almighty Allah,” he told reporters on Tuesday, according to the state news agency BSS.

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s BNP won a landslide victory in February, in the first elections since a 2024 uprising ousted the government of Sheikh Hasina. The presidency vote follows the resignation in July of the previous president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, 76, a close ally of Hasina who had faced pressure to quit.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2026