Awami League, Bangladesh, BDElection 2026, Constitution, Current Affairs, Democracy, Opinion, Politics

Election Observation in Bangladesh: Scrutiny on Paper, Legitimacy in Practice

Jahanara Nuri 14 February 2026

Editorial Analysis re-published from TBR Bangladesh held its election amid serious constitutional violations, erosion of the rule of law, and persistent human rights abuses. This moment was not merely procedural; for many citizens, it became a struggle for political survival. Those who devoted their lives to liberating and building Bangladesh have faced renewed pressure from forces seeking to establish faith-based rule. They sided with Islamic Republic of Pakistan against the liberal-minded citizens of their own homeland. Many leaders of these hardline Islamist groups are linked to individuals implicated in the 1971 genocide. The July 2024 movement, often called a “colour revolution,” openly defied constitutional governance, the rule of law, and the legacy of Bangladesh’s liberation leadership. The Awami League, pro-liberation activists, ordinary supporters, and the Hindu community have been criminalized and subjected to arbitrary violence, mass arrests, false legal cases, and extortion of land and businesses. To date, nearly fifty Awami League leaders have died in prison without their cases reaching

court, many reportedly while still in handcuffs. Over a thousand grass-roots activists have been killed, and hundreds of thousands remain fugitives, with many deprived of their education at universities and medical colleges. That rupture triggered a violent period now exceeding sixteen months, marked by widespread repression and institutional breakdown. Hundreds of elected parliamentarians remain imprisoned, while the Prime Minister continues to live in exile under credible threats. The country’s largest political party has been barred from participation, and mass arrests have targeted its supporters. Under these conditions, the meaning of electoral consent and democratic legitimacy demands urgent re-examination. Bangladesh’s election now raises serious legitimacy concerns. Constitutional uncertainty, a history of unprecedented violence, and reported irregularities cast doubt on international observation and democratic credibility. The Washington Examiner reported that Bangladesh’s 2024 crisis began with student protests that escalated into deadly violence and were subsequently misread by key international actors. With the parliamentary election now concluded, the central question has shifted from anticipation to…

Bangladesh, Constitution, Politics

Current Constitutional Governance Crisis in Bangladesh: A Legal Postmortem

M Rafiqul Islam 7 February 2026

The interim government is obliged to demonstrate its legitimacy which cannot be invented or plucked from trees. Its legitimacy must come from only one source, called the Constitution of Bangladesh. Notwithstanding its unelected and precarious constitutional status, the interim government is acting like a ‘touch stone’ as if anything it touches and incorporates into the Constitution becomes inviolable law. Its two documents in particular, the July Charter and its referendum, fall far short of their constitutionality. They are ill-conceived and short-sighted rickety political conundrums at their best with ample potential for fierce political confrontations at their worst.

7 February 2026

(Keynote address to an international seminar on Bangladesh held in the Jubilee Seminar Hall of the New South Wales Parliament House, 6 Macquarie Street, Sydney on 2 February 2026 at 2-5 pm) Honourable Chair, distinguished guests, learned commentators, and dear audience, Let me begin by providing a brief context for this talk. Bangladesh commenced its journey of good governance under a popular and accountable democratic Constitution in 1972. Since 1975, it has been on a roller-coaster ride from parliamentary, presidential, martial law, military dominated turncoat democracy, a return to parliamentary government, and, most recently, an unelected interim government. The current interim government is the product of the political uprising in July 2024 which ousted the Sheikh Hasina administration that had been in power since 2008. Against this backdrop, this paper offers an academic lawyer’s opinion and legal analysis based strictly on the hard-core provisions of the Constitution of Bangladesh still in force without any inference and extrapolation. I will endeavour

to present this analysis simply, without diluting its legal rigour. Legal Status of the Interim Government Following the fall of Sheikh Hasina government, the Prime Minister departed for India. It was initially unclear whether she intented to led a government in exile, as has occurred in other historical contexts, such as the Sihanouk government of Cambodia, which went to China after he was overthrown and ran a government in exile parallel to the Pol Pot regime. No such attempt was made. Instead, a public declaration announced that Sheikh Hasina had resigned, although her resignation letter has never been disclosed despite public demands and a writ petition filed in the High Court Division. Subsequently, the President publicly admitted that he had never received any resignation letter. This situation created a governance vacuum. To address it, the President invoked Article 106 of the Constitution and sought an advisory opinion from the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (AD). The Article 106 empowers…

Analysis, Awami League, Bangladesh, China, Constitution, Current Affairs, Democracy, Dr Yunus, Islamism, Journalism, Liberation War, Myanmar, Politics, Review

Sheikh Hasina: The Power of Leadership

Jahanara Nuri 28 September 2025

In the early nineties, Shahbagh dawned pale and mysterious. It rose like an ancient city from rice-washed waters. Streets glistened as if inked with dust from Nawabi bakharkhani and ashes. Stalls at crossings exhaled jasmine, tuberose, marigold. Restaurants thickened the air with parata, paya, dim vaja, and dal vuna. Rickshaws and cars rattled past like iron insects. From the crossing, standing before PG Hospital toward TSC, you saw the Northern Road slip toward Bangla Academy and the Science Building. It carried students, teachers, people — and the hushed footsteps of history itself. By nine o’clock, rickshaws jostled for space. The campus pulsed with the life of a nation anchored at Shahbagh. Dhaka University and Shahbagh bore history’s cruelty. They witnessed resistance, oppression, survival, and pride. Shahbagh was never just a marketplace for flowers, food, books, and medicine. It was also an altar of ideas and creative dreams. Writers and thinkers debated over tea, killing kings and generals with words. The tar on the streets around TSC drank blood every decade — not of clerics’, but

of young dreamers’. Socialist Student Union members, Student League, Secular bloggers, DU professors bled on its pavements, etching a red chapter in the history the city could not wash away. Assassins silenced voices one by one. When they struck my teacher, Dr. Humayun Azad, they carved permanent hatred into his face. He survived but lived only half in this world, until death claimed him in a German twilight, six months later. DU Student Union's 2025 election became a theatre. Rigged stages allowed supporters of Avijit Roy’s killers to take their seats. Since July 2024, 761 armed zealots, along with Jamaat-Shibir and the Islamic Alliance, have been roaming freely in the country, plotting a Caliphate on soil that had chosen freedom a hundred years earlier. A sharp question remains: why did no cleric fall to these assassins? Silence answers. It shows whose hands guided the knives and who threw the bombs and grenades. Many forces contended for Bangladesh’s soul, but none gnawed like the venom of religious politics led by Moudusit, Salafist Jamat E Islam, Islamic…

Bangladesh, Democracy, Dr Yunus, Islamism, Opinion, Secularism

Bangladesh at the UNGA: Stagecraft for an Islamist-Nationalist Regime

Iconus Clustus 25 September 2025

Muhammad Yunus’s reformist rhetoric masks an exclusionary coalition that sidelines secular forces while seeking international legitimacy.

25 September 2025

1. UNGA: Stagecraft and Legitimacy The United Nations General Assembly is where states strive not just to be heard but to be recognised as legitimate actors on the world stage. Against this backdrop, Bangladesh’s interim regime has chosen Muhammad Yunus as its emissary, projecting an image of “national unity” and “reform.” The symbolism is calculated: a Nobel laureate with global stature fronting a fragile, contested coalition. This choice is less about representation and more about stagecraft. For Western ears, Yunus’s polished rhetoric about democracy and renewal is reassuring; for the regime at home, it serves as a shield against scrutiny. Yet this diplomatic theatre conceals a harsher reality, one in which the UNGA is being weaponised not to advance Bangladesh’s democratic aspirations, but to launder the legitimacy of a project that is deeply exclusionary and regressive. 2. The Regime’s Composition: A Coalition Built on Exclusion Behind the international façade lies a coalition defined less by inclusivity than by exclusion. Its

core is a marriage of convenience between the centre-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the far-right Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami (rehabilitated into politics in 1979 when BNP opened the doors to Islamist participation), and the pseudo-centrist National Citizen Party (NCP). The NCP, born from the 2024 uprising’s Islamist-infiltrated student movement, cloaks its rejection of 1971’s secular Bengali nationalism in a “Muslim-Bengali” identity, softening theocratic leanings for broader appeal. Liberal, secular-nationalist, and progressive forces – AL, CPB, JSD, BSD – which collectively commanded roughly 40-45% of votes in past elections (2001 estimates) and hold deep roots in the liberation struggle – have been conspicuously sidelined. The gravitational pull within this alliance is unmistakably toward an Islamist-nationalist axis. Jamaat has reemerged not only as a political actor but as a dominant force, its cadres intimidating opponents and seizing local power in the post-August 5 chaos while extending its reach into institutions like the judiciary and the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD). The ICT-BD, once tasked with…

21 August, 21 August 2004, Analysis, Awami League, Bangladesh, Current Affairs, grenade attack, Opinion, Politics

The tale of 21 August grenade attack in Bangladesh

Jahanara Nuri 20 August 2025

1. Early rainy season’s subtle steps was felt in the hot, humid afternoon in Dhaka on August 21, 2004. Bangladesh. The sun hung low on the horizon, shadows of people and everything around them stretched long across Dhaka’s bustling Bangabandhu Avenue. The city's pulse beat fervently as thousands convened for the peace rally of Awami League— a party accustomed to the shadow of political strife since 1949-announced its stand against violence. Their rally was initially planned for Muktangon, the venue shifted to the broad crossroads near the Party headquarters after the permission for Muktangon was not available. The megacity's atmosphere mirrored the rally's intent—solemn yet resolute. At the heart of the gathering, Sheikh Hasina, the leader of the Awami League, stood on a truck. Encircled by leaders spanning generations of the party, she addressed the crowd with a voice of steely determination, condemning terrorism and championing justice and democracy. Waves of supporters, brandishing banners and flags, cheered her on, their

hope defying the precarious political climate. At precisely 5:22 PM, the air buzzed with anticipation as Sheikh Hasina concluded her speech with the defiant cry, “Joy Bangla, Joy Bangabandhu.” "I had barely completed my speech and was going to get down from the truck when I heard a big bang and the next moment blood splashed on my body." The ear-splitting explosion of a grenade detonated just yards from Hasina's podium sent a cascade of shrapnel into the crowd and shattered the assembly's energy. Chaos erupted. Screams of terror mingled with the acrid smell of gunpowder as panic swept through the sea of people, scattering them like leaves in a gale. 2. In a swift and seamless motion, leaders around Sheikh Hasina formed a protective human shield with a singular, instinctive resolve, their outstretched arms defying the onslaught and helping her get into the car with security personnel. Time seemed to suspend; the explosion's echo lingered in the air as…