Bangladesh: Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, has made a remarkable comeback by winning the top positions in the Chittagong University Central Students’ Union (CUCSU) election, held peacefully after more than four decades.
The polls concluded without major unrest, though some post-election complaints were raised by rival panels.
According to official results announced Thursday morning, Shibir’s Md Ibrahim Hossain Rony was elected Vice President (VP) with 7,983 votes. His closest contender, Sajjad Hossain Hridoy from the Bangladesh Chhatra Dal panel, received 4,374 votes. Rony is an MPhil student in the Department of History and currently serves as the President of Shibir’s Chattogram Metropolitan South unit and a member of its central executive council.
In the General Secretary (GS) race, Saeed Bin Habib, also from Shibir’s panel, secured victory with 8,031 votes, defeating Md Shafayat of Chhatra Dal, who obtained 2,734 votes. Habib is pursuing his master’s degree in the Department of History and serves as the literary affairs secretary of the university unit of Shibir.
The election results were declared around 4:45 am on Thursday in a packed auditorium at the Faculty of Commerce, nearly twelve hours after the voting ended. Following the announcement, Shibir supporters celebrated their landslide win with chants and slogans across the campus.
Chief Election Commissioner Professor Monir Uddin announced the results, confirming that about 65 percent of the 27,516 registered students cast their ballots in the long-awaited polls. Shibir clinched 24 out of 30 seats in the central body, including both key leadership posts, marking a significant shift in campus politics.
With this victory, Islami Chhatra Shibir now controls the student unions of three major public universities including Dhaka University in Bangladesh, further consolidating its organizational strength at the national level. The CUCSU election, held after 44 years, is seen as a major political milestone for the group’s resurgence in student politics.
