POBNEWS24, Desk report Dhaka Apr 15, 2026 : Time magazine has released its list of the 100 most influential people of 2026. Bangladesh Prime Minister and BNP Chairman Tareque Rahman has been included among the world leaders and policymakers in this list.
The list also includes Nepalese Prime Minister Balendra Shah, Pope Leo XIV, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Mexican President Claudia Schiffer, Namibia’s first female president Nandi Ndaitwa, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and European Union Technology Chief Hena Virkunen.
Time magazine wrote about Tarique Rahman that just a few months ago, he was a political figure in exile in a green area in southwest London. But the fall of Bangladesh’s dictatorial Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024 changed the entire political equation.
Tarique Rahman, the then acting chairman of the BNP, went from being the spokesman for the opposition movement to being the central figure in the country’s future leadership. After 17 years abroad, he secured that expected position with a landslide victory in the February 2024 elections.The victory brought him back into the political lineage of his family. His mother, the late Khaleda Zia, was Bangladesh’s first female prime minister. However, Khaleda Zia died just five days after Tarique Rahman returned home, deepening his personal grief.
The grief was still fresh in his interview with Time magazine in January. Yet he promised to use that emotion as a force to unite the country’s 175 million people and revive the economy.
Bangladesh is currently struggling with high inflation and youth unemployment, while relations with regional power India have reached an all-time low. He said these crises demand urgent resolution. He said, “We need to work together, unite, so that people get their political rights back.”
