Bangladesh’s 2026 parliamentary election unfolded within an information landscape fundamentally distinct from any previous democratic transition in the nation’s history.
A coordinated disinformation infrastructure soiled social media platforms to manufacture a predetermined meta-narrative about “election engineering” that constructed parallel competing realities about the election’s legitimacy before voting commenced, during the electoral process itself, and in the immediate aftermath.
When fiction becomes campaign strategy
On the eve of Bangladesh’s parliamentary election, a photograph swept across Facebook showing cash-stuffed sacks allegedly discovered at the home of National Citizen Party leader Nasiruddin Patwary, complete with an image of him in handcuffs. That image was fabricated. In reality, no arrest occurred.
This was one thread in a sprawling tapestry of coordinated disinformation campaigns. FactWatch, an independent fact-checking entity, debunked a total of 94 fact-checked disinformation cases documented between December 11, 2025, and February 17, 2026 -- spanning the critical period encompassing Bangladesh's parliamentary election.
This analysis reveals a sophisticated ecosystem targeting political parties, individual candidates, election administration, media institutions, and minority communities with precision-engineered disinformation.
Five distinct tactical approaches identified for disinformation:
- Fabricated claims without any source material dominated 31% of cases;
- Out-of-context or temporally displaced content comprised 24%;
- Fake media photocards constituted 21%;
- AI-generated synthetic content represented 16%;
- Edited excerpts comprised 6%.
The disinformation-to-reality ratio suggests that Bangladesh’s 2026 election was more credible than its detractors claimed; what emerged was misinformation deployed as strategic political infrastructure to delegitimize electoral outcomes before, during, and after the voting.
Manufacturing pre-poll chaos
Consider the carefully orchestrated attacks on political parties, beginning with National Citizen Party convener Nahid Islam, whose candidacy in Dhaka-11 made him a prime target. A viral image showed a Dominican passport bearing his photograph and details, suggesting he held foreign citizenship that would disqualify him from contesting the election.
Fact-checkers determined someone had downloaded a free Caribbean passport template and digitally inserted Nahid's information -- a crude but effective forgery that raised questions about his eligibility and loyalty.
Simultaneously, a satirical photocard was stripped of its parody page branding and recirculated, showing Nahid declaring “I do not want to live in this country, the country has been destroyed” -- a quote that never appeared on his verified social media accounts.
The same playbook targeted BNP’s leadership. When the Election Commission cancelled BNP candidate Manjurul Ahsan Munshi’s nomination for Comilla-4, disinformation operators seized the moment to claim his wife Majeda Munshi had purchased an independent nomination to circumvent the ban -- a claim contradicted by official candidate lists showing no such registration.
Elsewhere, rumours circulated that BNP Chairman Tarique Rahman’s own nominationhad been cancelled, a baseless assertion designed to sow confusion about the party’s electoral standing.
Even fabricated violence poisoned pre-election discourse. When district BNP organizing secretary Romana Ahmed and colleague Sabiha Sultana were injured, viral posts claimedthey had been attacked by “Jamaat terrorists” while campaigning. Ahmed herself clarified they had been hurt when their rickshaw overturned in a traffic accident, yet the false narrative of politically-motivated violence spread far more widely than the mundane truth.
Similarly, after a genuine clash in Sherpur killed a Jamaat leader, fabricated claimsemerged that Jubo Dal joint-convener Saiful Islam had also been killed -- a claim Islam himself debunked through a live video, though not before the false death report had circulated extensively.
The pre-poll disinformation landscape also featured elaborate sexual violence fabrications designed to discredit political actors. A photocard styled as Channel 24 news claimed NCP joint secretary Dr Mahmuda Mitu had been raped, using the channel’s branding without authorisation, which revealed its fraudulent nature.
Another photocard repurposed an old photograph of a Jamaat leader’s 2023 arrest on sabotage charges to falsely claim he had recently been arrested for kidnapping and raping a maid -- recontextualizing an unrelated incident to construct a fresh scandal.
Polling day theatre
When February 12 arrived, the disinformation machinery shifted into overdrive, manufacturing real-time evidence of the rigged election its operators had long been predicting.
The postal ballot system became ground zero for these fabrications, with viral statisticsclaiming Jamaat had received 400,000 expatriate votes compared to BNP’s 70,000 -- inflammatory figures suggesting the election had been decided through fraudulent absentee voting.
Fact-checkers methodically demonstrated that these numbers were entirely invented; postal ballots would only be counted after 4:30 PM on election day.
When that initial false narrative failed to gain sufficient traction, disinformation operators pivoted to claim BNP was now leading in postal ballots -- evidence of the operation’s flexibility in manufacturing whatever narrative seemed most likely to undermine confidence at any given moment.
Additional false claims alleged that all expatriate votes had been cancelled entirely, a dramatic assertion unsupported by any Election Commission announcement.
Ballot stuffing narratives followed similar patterns of sophisticated fabrication. A particularly brazen example involved photographs purporting to show army personnel catching BNP activists red-handed with ballot boxes in Sherpur.
Fact-checkers traced the images to a February 8 military training exercise in Dighinala, Khagrachari -- footage from a routine drill that had been stripped of context and reframed as evidence of election-day malfeasance.
Even more troubling was the emergence of entirely AI-generated videos showing ballot papers being stamped, purporting to document ballot stuffing operations.
Detection tools flagged clear visual inconsistencies -- yet many viewers accepted the footage as authentic documentation of fraud. Another manipulated video repurposed military drill footage to falsely depict a ballot box robbery, demonstrating how raw footage from legitimate activities could be recontextualised into entirely fabricated scandals. When fact-checkers examined a viral photograph claimed to show postal ballots from Jhalokhati-2, reverse image searches and comparison with official ballot formats revealed it matched no authorized documentation.
Complementing these ballot manipulation narratives were horrifying but fabricated accounts of violence designed to suppress turnout and create the appearance of a blood-soaked electoral process. A video circulated claiming to show BNP “terrorists” attacking the minority community in Comilla-11, but investigators determined the footage was at least one month old. No mainstream media corroborated any such post-election attack on minorities.
Similarly, a scripted content creator video showing a woman’s shooting was repurposed and presented as depicting a Hindu woman’s murder by Shibir activists in Khagrachhari, when in fact the clip was staged entertainment from an entirely different context and location.
Another viral clip alleged that because a father supported the Awami League, Shibir militants had kidnapped and gang-raped his daughter, when police records showed the incident involved a September family land dispute with no political dimension whatsoever.
These fabricated atrocities served to paint the election as occurring amid comprehensive lawlessness -- an environment fundamentally incompatible with free and fair voting.
Post-poll manipulation
Once votes were tallied and results began, the disinformation operation entered its third phase: Manufacturing evidence that outcomes had been manipulated during counting and result tabulation.
Claims emerged that BanglaVision’s election results coverage showed dramatic reversals between late-night and early-morning broadcasts, suggesting manipulation had occurred during those hours. Fact-checkers determined the broadcaster had posted numerous incremental result cards throughout the night as counting progressed.
Another angle involved taking the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner’s previous comments about voting difficulties out of context and recirculating them as if they were contemporary admissions of result manipulation.
The post-poll phase also featured dramatic but fabricated consequences allegedly flowing from electoral outcomes. Viral posts claimed Nasir Uddin Patwary had attempted suicide by drinking toilet cleaner after his electoral defeat, complete with hospital bed photographs. Reverse image searches showed the hospital photograph in June 2025, with some versions identified as AI-generated or edited.
Conversely, videos showing the newly elected Madaripur-1 MP Hanzala involved in beating people were presented as his immediate post-victory actions against drug dealers, supposedly showing him delivering swift street justice. Investigation revealed the footage actually dated to August 2024, showing locals beating alleged drug buyers in an unrelated incident.
Perhaps most cynically, an old video from August 2024 in Gopalganj showing a house fire was recirculated as depicting post-election arson targeting opposition voters in Comilla. The temporal and geographic manipulation transformed an unrelated past incident into manufactured evidence of electoral violence.
The ecosystem of manufactured authority
Photocards mimicking legitimate outlets -- Kaler Kantho, DBC News, Jamuna TV, Channel 24, Jugantor, Daily Amar Desh, BBC Bangla, and Prothom Alo -- circulated widely with fabricated quotes and headlines. These were carefully crafted replicas that exploited established media's credibility to distribute false information through what appeared to be authoritative journalistic channels.
By manufacturing a comprehensive narrative environment, pre-poll vote-buying was assumed, polling-day fraud was “documented,” and post-poll result manipulation was “proven” -- the campaign created conditions where shared factual reality collapsed.
Bangladesh’s 2026 election revealed how disinformation infrastructure can systematically destroy that baseline, replacing it with competing manufactured realities where no consensus becomes possible.
Nevertheless, it offers a cautionary tale about democracy’s vulnerability in the digital age. The battle for Bangladesh’s democratic future will be won or lost not merely at ballot boxes, but in the information trenches where truth and fiction wage their increasingly indistinguishable war.
Zulker Naeen is Research Coordinator, FactWatch and Adjunct Faculty, Department of Media Studies and Journalism (MSJ), University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB). This analysis is based on ongoing research into election-related disinformation conducted by FactWatch throughout Bangladesh's 2026 parliamentary election period.