Bangladeshi students who led last year’s mass protests to depose Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have launched a political party before parliamentary elections expected to be held within the next year.

Addressing a rally on Manik Mia Avenue adjacent to the parliament building in the capital on Friday, leaders of the new National Citizens Party (NCP) insisted that they would pursue the politics of national unity over division, transparency and good governance over corruption, and an independent foreign policy to build a “second republic.”

Lima Akter, sister of Ismail Hossain Rabby — who was among those killed by security forces during the July uprising against Hasina — announced that Nahid Islam would be the new party’s convenor.

Islam – the 26-year-old poster boy of the July uprising, which toppled Hasina, and later the acting head of Bangladesh’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting – will lead the new party. Islam resigned on Tuesday from the interim government, headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, to assume the leadership of the new party, which will initially have a central committee of about 150 members.

Yunus, who has headed the interim government since Hasina’s exit in August, has said general elections will be held by December or in early 2026.

Shafiqul Islam, a third-year nursing student at Gazi Munibur Rahman Nursing College in the coastal district of Patuakhali who was at the launch event on Friday, said, “We had no freedom of expression under the previous regime. We don’t want violence in educational institutions in the name of politics. Corruption remains a major obstacle to our progress, and we want a permanent end to it. This new party is our hope.”