Can the July Charter alone prevent the rise of autocracy?
As Bangladesh embarks on a new journey towards democratic reforms, experts warn that legal frameworks alone may not be enough to halt the rise of autocracy. Without genuine changes within political parties and a shift in political culture, the spectre of authoritarianism will keep looming large.
How do democracies die?
In the book, aptly titled 'How Democracies Die', Harvard political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky showed how elected leaders have gradually become the major threat to democracies, replacing military coups as the primary threat. They cited the examples of Venezuela, Russia, Turkey, Thailand, Hungary and Poland and discussed the rise of Donald Trump.
And Sheikh Hasina is the prime example of this phenomenon. After coming to power in 2008 through a landslide victory in an election generally regarded as fair, she became the fascist ruler of the country, dismantling the democratic institutions and electoral system.
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Same goes for the US president, Donald Trump, whose authoritarian measures are being compared to royalty by the American media. He, too, came through a fair election in a country with longstanding, strong democratic institutions, insinuating that even in a developed country like the US the mechanism of gatekeeping against the rise of authoritarian leaders may fail.
After 5 August, Bangladesh is once again restarting her journey towards democracy through reforms. The main political parties, civil society, and stakeholders are of the opinion that in order to prevent the rise of another autocrat, some check and balance is needed.
And for this, there are talks about sweeping reforms like amending constitutions, the judiciary, curbing the Prime Minister's power, and changing the governance system as the guardrail against the rise of the next authoritarian ruler or regime.
Of late, the July Charter has also been announced. Since then, experts are talking about legal frameworks that can prove to be effective in stopping the rise of fascists in future? Against such a backdrop, the question that naturally pops up is 'can a legal framework alone prevent the rise of autocracy?'
The July Charter has many important reform proposals for the state, government and governance. However, it has no provisions for reforming the political parties and intra-party democracy.
Now the question is, given the lack of reform within the political parties and the existing political culture of our country, are legal frameworks like the July Charter and other major reforms alone prevent the rise of autocratic rulers if there is no real change within the political parties?
The last two decades have witnessed a new and insidious form of democratic decline through gradual and legal processes. This phenomenon, termed "autocratic legalism," describes a process in which charismatic new leaders, elected by democratic publics, use their electoral mandates to systematically dismantle the very constitutional systems they inherited. The danger of this method lies in its subtlety; to outside observers, it may appear that "nothing illegal is going on".
This process starts with the manipulation of the constitution itself. Sheikh Hasina used her supermajority in the parliament between 2009 and 2013 to amend the constitution and consolidate her power and undermine the democratic institutions. And later, she held three questionable elections in 2014, 2018, and 2024 under the pretext of 'upholding the constitution'.
Badiul Alam Majumdar, a member of the National Consensus Commission, said, "Sheikh Hasina did not come to power via a military coup. Nor did she discard the constitution. Yet she became an autocrat—a fascist. Because the country's legal structure and institutions were already predisposed to authoritarianism. Sheikh Hasina arrived and cemented them. Unless these structures—which breed autocracy—are changed, the possibility of the return of dictatorship cannot be ruled out."
Changes need to come from within the political parties
On paper, Bangladesh has provisions for the political parties to ensure intra-party democracy. The Representation of the People Order (RPO) says that a political party's constitution must contain a provision for the election of committee members at all levels, including the central committee.
Moreover, the RPO mandates that political parties must finalise the nomination of their candidates based on panels of potential nominees. These panels are prepared by the grassroots committees at the ward, union, thana, upazila, or district levels of the respective constituency.
Violation of any of the provisions outlined in Article 90B, which includes the requirements for internal democracy, can lead to the cancellation of a registered party's registration.
These sweeping changes came 15 years ago; following the declaration of a state of emergency, the caretaker government too launched a similar reform campaign. At that time, the primary cause of the political crisis was identified as the lack of democratic practice within political parties. This period saw the imprisonment of two leaders under the controversial 'minus two' formula, which was widely controversial.
Before that, after Ershad's fall in 1990, a joint declaration made by the political alliances pledged to establish representative government and the rule of law, a secular democratic atmosphere, hold credible parliamentary elections under a non-party caretaker government, introduce a sovereign parliament, ensure independence of the judiciary, protect the fundamental rights of the people and maintain the spirit of the 1971 War of Independence. Unfortunately, it was forgotten afterwards.
In the end, some important reforms were added to the RPO concerning the electoral system. However, the constitutions of almost all registered parties are still in conflict with the RPO.
Most of the parties don't follow it, and their councils are handpicked by the leader mostly. Party congresses are infrequent and largely ceremonial—just an occasion to rubber-stamp decisions already made by the top leadership. Candidate selection is determined by a narrow circle of loyalists rather than through open primaries or member votes, which not only marginalises grassroots voices but also fuels patronage and corruption.
Even within the affiliated 'brotherly' (read student) and labour wings, loyalty to individual leaders outweighs policy deliberation or democratic practice. The leaders of most of the parties have immense power. And nobody has ever faced any action for violating the RPO rules.
And this perpetuates the authoritarian transitions. Take for example, the case of Awami League from 2009 to 2024.
The Awami League's trajectory under Sheikh Hasina shows a textbook case of how a ruling party can gradually morph into an authoritarian—indeed, fascist-leaning—regime by exhibiting the four warning signs identified by Levitsky and Ziblatt in their seminal book.
First, rejection of democratic rules was evident in the process of abolishing the caretaker government system in 2011, which allowed the Awami League to preside over elections and effectively rig outcomes in its favour, most brazenly in 2014, 2018 and 2024, when opposition parties were denied a level playing field and they even boycotted the election in 2014 and 2024.
Second, denial of the legitimacy of opponents became central to Hasina's discourse, as the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami were branded not as rivals but as existential threats to the nation, thereby justifying their political exclusion. And it enabled them to forcibly disappear, jail or kill the opponents.
Third, toleration and encouragement of violence were entrenched through the ruling party's use of the police, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the intelligence agencies to suppress dissent. Party-affiliated student and youth wings like Chhatra League and Jubo League were used to attack opposition rallies, intimidate voters, and silence dissents.
Fourth, readiness to curtail civil liberties was demonstrated through draconian laws such as the Digital Security Act, systematic attacks on independent media, arbitrary arrests of journalists, and the harassment of civil society organisations. This pattern mirrors the "autocratic legalism" seen in Hungary and Poland: the judiciary was subverted by politicised appointments and loyalty-based promotions, the civil service reduced to a partisan machine, and the press suffocated by state control and regulatory intimidation.
Badiul Alam Majumdar opined, "If the political parties lack goodwill, if they are not interested, and if they describe these changes as not important, then nothing will be achieved. We need to change our overall political culture."
But how hard will it be to make the political parties change their ways? Honestly, it's quite difficult.
Dr Zahed Ur Rahman, a prominent political commentator, is sceptical about the prospects of such reforms being carried out by the political parties.
He said, "We think that asking for reforms can bring changes in our politics. But in reality, it is quite tough. Look at India for example. Sonia Gandhi was never the PM of India, but she was the one who took all decisions from 2004 to 2014. She was the de facto PM of India, even though Dr Manmohan Singh was the PM on paper. And this sort of arrangement makes it harder to implement intra-party democracy, which, in turn, fails to prevent the autocrats."
Ultimately, democratic resilience is a holistic imperative, requiring a multi-pronged defence that transcends the boundaries of formal legal structures. This defence is built on two interconnected pillars: a strong legal framework and a democratic culture. The traditional faith in "parchment barriers" alone is a dangerous anachronism; we need to change our political culture also. Otherwise, someday, we may witness another Sheikh Hasina in the making.
