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Published : 16 Oct 2025, 09:27 AM
Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, has swept to victory in the Chittagong University Central Students’ Union (CUCSU) polls that ended peacefully but have been marred by back-and-forth complaints since.
Now the organisation controls the student councils of three of Bangladesh’s major universities. It has also won the top posts at the CUCSU after 44 years.
The results were announced in a crowded auditorium in the Chittagong University Faculty of Commerce around 4:45am on Thursday, about 12 hours after voting ended. Shibir leaders and activists celebrated their victory with loud slogans.
Chief Election Commissioner Prof Monir Uddin announced the winners one by one in an election that ended without any major commotion. Shibir won a sweeping majority of 24 posts in the central union, including vice president and general secretary.
About 65 percent of the 27,516 voters turned out to cast their ballots in the polls, the CEC said.
Ibrahim Hossain Rony, a student of the Department of History from the 2017-18 academic year and the president of Chattogram Metropolitan South unit of Chhatra Shibir and a member of its central executive council, dominated the competition for vice president. He received 7,983 votes, compared to his closest rival, Sajjad Hossain Hridoy of the Chhatra Dal, who got 4,374.
The general secretary post was won by Sayeed Bin Habib, another student of the Department of History from the 2019-20 academic year. Sayeed, the literature and human rights secretary of the university’s Shibir branch won by a landslide of 8,031 votes, compared to his nearest rival -- Chhatra Dal's Md Shafayat Hossain – who got 2,724.
However, Chhatra Dal’s Ayyubur Rahman Toufiq won the post of CUCSU assistant general secretary, beating his rival Shibir's Sajjat Hoson Munna by 7,014 votes to 5,045.
Tamanna Mahfuz Smriti, a candidate of the “Binirman Shikkharthi Oikya” panel, won the post of assistant sports secretary.
In the wake of the July Uprising, the political changeover in the country, and the ban on the Chhatra League, this year’s CUCSU campaign seemed to be a contest between Shibir and Chhatra Dal. In the aftermath, it seems the difference between the rivals was much sharper than expected.
In the initial results from the first five halls, the Chhatra Dal seemed to be putting up a reasonable contest, but as more votes were counted, they fell further and further behind. Aside from the two posts won by rivals, Shibir’s candidates overwhelmed their competition from the 11 other panels.
Shibir is also in charge of the Dhaka University Central Students' Union (DUCSU) and the Jahangirnagar University Central Students' Union (JUCSU), which the student organisation won handily in recent voting.
Now, Shibir, which had been unable to organise on campuses for most of the past decade and a half of Awami League rule, control several major university student councils.
Chhatra Dal, which had focused its efforts on winning the important seats in the CUCSU, has only managed to retain the assistant general secretary post it won in 1990.
As it did after the DUCSU and JUCSU polls, the Chhatra Dal has also raised complaints in the Chittagong University polls. However, they had boycotted those elections immediately after the vote, but did not do so in the case of the CUCSU.
The CUCSU vote count process was also much smoother than at Dhaka University or Jahangirnagar University, with results available early on the morning after the polls.
Election officials put in significant effort to speed up the counting after the bitter waits for the DUCSU and JUCSU results.
Voting began around 9:30am on Wednesday at most centres and ended around 4pm. Machines were used to count votes from five centres. After election officials did an initial count, programmers from the university’s IT cell counted the votes again separately. The CEC had previously stated that results would be announced when the two counts matched.
Polls opened amid a wave of enthusiasm and excitement as students from the port city came to the campus in the morning on shuttle trains and special buses provided for the polls. Students staying in the university halls joined them.
Voting for the visually disabled was delayed until 11:30am.
Soon after the voting began, complaints began coming in that the ink used to mark voters was not indelible and could be removed. In addition, candidates from various panels, including Islami Chhatra Shibir and Chhatra Dal, complained about outsiders entering the campus.
It was also reported that 12 unsigned ballots were found in the ballot box at the Faculty of Information Technology.
Vice-Chancellor Muhammad Yeahia Akhter said he was also excited by the polls. After visiting a few polling stations around 10am, he told reporters: “This will be considered a rehearsal for creating a favourable environment for the national election.”
A total of 13 panels, combining full and partial alliances of student and cultural organisations, contested the polls. The 26 posts in the CUCSU were contested by 415 candidates – 348 men and 47 women.
There were also 493 candidates for 206 posts in the student council elections for 14 residential halls and one hostel. A total of 350 candidates contested in the nine-student hall, and 123 in the five-student hall.
Like the national polls, the CUCSU elections used transparent ballot boxes, voter numbers with photos and OMR machines.
