Dhaka, July 22 (IANS) Bangladesh has undergone immense turmoil marked by institutional transitions and mob violence in 24 months since July 2024 protests. While the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government was overthrown following the unrest, the task of transforming the system itself remains unfinished over the last two years, a report has stated.
According to a report in online magazine ‘The Diplomat’, after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) assumed power earlier this year, it declined to take the oath of office as members of the Constitution Reform Council, effectively refusing to implement the outcomes of the February 2026 referendum.
It noted that the referendum on the July National Charter secured early 68 per cent voted “Yes” providing a political mandate to restructure governance and authorising parliament to function as a constituent assembly to enact reforms.
In doing so, the report said, the BNP dismissed the referendum’s “yes” vote as well as the July protestors’ call for “radical political changes”.
“The aspirations of the July Revolution were documented in the July National Charter of 2025, where all political parties, including the BNP, agreed on several principles of state reformation such as limiting the Prime Minister’s tenure to 10 years, maintaining the independence of the Judiciary and Election Commission, protection of human rights, and establishing a 100-member Upper House,” it detailed.
Following the election, the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance adopted divergent positions on reforms. While the Jamaat and the student-led National Citizen Party (NCP) pushed for the immediate implementation of the referendum, the BNP sought to delay the process, the report mentioned.
A BNP member told The Diplomat that his party “wants to bring changes to the constitution as per the BNP’s 31-point outline, which has many similarities with the July National Charter”, adding that the party “does not want to make changes to the constitution the way NCP and Jamaat suggest.”
Addressing parliament in April, Bangladesh Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed, who represented the BNP in discussions with the former Muhammad Yunus-led interim government on the July National Charter, reportedly described the July National Charter Implementation Order as an “illegal order”.
Ahmed said that BNP had refrained from expressing its concerns at that time “for the sake of elections”. He acknowledged that the party “compromised on many issues and signed the charter so that elections would not be obstructed under the pretext of reform”.
“Therefore, the BNP maintained a political ambiguity about the July reforms and referendum, which led critics to point out that the party had chosen political conservatism at a time of radical political changes. Only time will tell whether BNP chooses the right path or a very narrow path to liberal democracy,” The Diplomat noted.
