Prime Minister Tarique Rahman arrives in Tokyo for four-day state visit to Japan

Serbia's Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat late on Sunday in the country's snap parliamentary election, admitting that the student-led Student List had won and ending more than a decade in which he was the dominant figure in Serbian politics.

"We still do not have final results... it is clear that we have lost these elections," Vučić told supporters at the headquarters of his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in Belgrade. He said the Student List was projected to take between 135 and 140 seats in the 250-member parliament, while the SNS would have about 105, and that no other list had crossed the threshold.

The election commission reported record turnout. The BBC reported that 64.9 per cent of voters had cast ballots by 6pm local time, two hours before polls closed, and long queues formed at polling stations in Serbia and in cities abroad with large Serbian communities, including Ljubljana, Munich, Chicago and Los Angeles.

The result is a reversal for Vučić, who spent two terms as president and could not seek a third. He resigned the presidency last month and led the SNS into the election hoping to return as prime minister, the post he held from 2014 to 2017. The move echoed Vladimir Putin's shift from the Russian presidency to the premiership in 2008 in order to keep power.

Celebrations broke out in Belgrade and in Novi Sad once the concession was broadcast. Crowds danced, honked car horns and set off fireworks. "This will be a free state," the Student List's lead candidate, Ilija Srdanović, told BBC Serbian, saying the movement hoped to "free the country from tyranny". Another candidate, Radomir Saicic, said Serbians had shown that "no obstacle was greater than their will", Reuters reported.

The Student List grew out of two years of protest that began after a concrete canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad collapsed in November 2024, killing 16 people. Anger at the disaster, which many Serbians saw as proof of corruption and negligent construction, widened into a movement that drew in teachers, farmers and city dwellers and became the largest challenge to SNS rule since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

The movement has no conventional leadership and fielded candidates from medicine, acting, academia and sport. Its platform included removing officials who broke the rules, barring party loyalists from running public companies and freeing the public broadcaster from political control. Vučić and the SNS have denied corruption and promised higher pensions and public-sector pay and more investment in healthcare.

European leaders welcomed the outcome. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated the Student List and said the EU was ready to support reforms on the rule of law, media freedom, the fight against corruption and democratic institutions. Serbia has been an EU candidate since 2012, but its accession process has been stalled over democratic standards and its refusal to join sanctions on Russia.

The vote was held amid tension. Police sealed off streets around the Republic Electoral Commission in Belgrade, where preliminary results were being collected. Vučić blamed independent media for his defeat and alleged foreign interference, without offering evidence; the SNS has repeatedly accused outside powers of trying to unseat him.

Several things are not yet settled. The election commission has not published the full official count, and the seat figures cited by Vučić came from samples rather than the final tally. It is not clear whether the SNS will contest the result, how quickly a new government can be formed, or whether the Student List's majority will hold together once it has to legislate.

The new parliament must now agree on a prime minister, and the Student List has not yet said whom it will put forward. For Serbia's neighbours and its EU partners, the immediate question is whether a protest movement can turn an election victory into a working government. For voters, the promises on courts, media and public companies are the measures by which the result will be judged.

Bangladesh is preparing to make companies disclose who really owns and controls them, the first major rewrite of the Companies Act in 35 years and a direct attempt to close a gap that officials say has hidden the real owners of banks, telecoms firms and shell companies.

The commerce ministry's draft, the Companies (Third Amendment) Act 2026, would insert a beneficial-ownership clause into the 1994 law, Prothom Alo reported. Under the proposed section 34(a), the person whose name appears on the share register would no longer automatically count as the owner. Anyone who directly or indirectly owns or controls a company, or who can influence the appointment and removal of directors or the running of its daily business, would also have to be declared.

Ownership would have to be declared within 30 days of any change, in a prescribed form filed with the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms. Prothom Alo reported that failing to declare would carry a fine of up to Tk 50,000, with Tk 100 added for every day the failure continues. The Business Standard reported that a person who conceals beneficial ownership would also lose legal rights over the shares.

The draft contains about 40 changes and would be the biggest revision of company law since it was enacted, Prothom Alo reported. Ministry officials say the aim is to make ownership transparent, move registration and records online and cut administrative complexity for businesses.

The gap has already been tested in court. Prothom Alo reported that International Voice, an international gateway telecoms company, owed about Tk 126 crore in dues while its ownership was shown in the names of three people who knew nothing about the transfer. In March 2025 the High Court ordered the telecoms regulator and the Criminal Investigation Department to identify the real owner within 90 days. The newspaper reported that the investigation pointed to former Awami League MP Shamim Osman and members of his family.

The report also cited S Alam Group, saying chairman Mohammad Saiful Alam and his family held about 30 per cent of Islami Bank and about 22 per cent of Social Islami Bank, directly and through other entities, with several relatives on the boards. The group later drew large loans from the banks that have not been recovered, the newspaper said.

Under the draft, the registrar could share ownership and management information with the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit, the Anti-Corruption Commission, law enforcement agencies and foreign authorities on lawful request. Companies would not be able to refuse on grounds of confidentiality or lack of consent, The Business Standard reported. The changes follow recommendations from the financial intelligence unit, which did not exist when the present law was written.

An inter-ministerial meeting chaired by Commerce Minister Khandakar Abdul Muktadir is expected within two weeks, after which the draft goes to the cabinet, then to the law ministry for vetting and finally to parliament, Prothom Alo reported. The ministry held a consultation with stakeholders on 7 September.

Fazlul Hoque, administrator of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, told Prothom Alo that the law should have been updated years ago and that more than a decade of work had gone into it. He said he expected this amendment to pass. He told The Business Standard that formalising the registrar's role and moving its services online would matter as much as the text itself.

The draft would also take the High Court out of routine company housekeeping. Changes to a company's memorandum, including its objectives or a merger, would be approved by the registrar instead, with a right of appeal to the government within 30 days on payment of a fee. Records, notices and contracts could be kept electronically, and share transfers would need physical or digital identity checks. The minimum paid-up capital for a one-person company would fall to Tk 5 lakh from Tk 25 lakh.

Several questions remain. The final text has not been published, and the cabinet and parliament can still change it. Officials have not explained how the registrar would verify declarations that run through holding companies abroad, or how quickly it could process them. The fines are small compared with the sums involved in the cases cited, and it is not yet clear whether they would deter a nominee arrangement.

If passed, the law would cover existing companies as well as new ones, and they would have to file fresh declarations. The immediate tests are the inter-ministerial meeting, then whether the cabinet sends the draft to parliament in the current session.