July Charter raises more questions than it answers

After months of deliberations, the July Charter was finally signed by a number of political parties earlier this month. The signing ceremony, held under an overcast sky with bursts of showers, was described as "grand" and "historic" by officials of the Consensus Commission who presided over the event. But in reality, the ceremony turned out to be more of a damp squib.  Quite literally as well as figuratively.

Its political windfall - despite Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus's hyperbolic exhortations - may also turn out to be rather underwhelming.

The Nobel Peace Laureate orchestrated the whole process, for which the beneficiaries will no doubt remember him fondly. But Yunus's suggestion that the signing elevates Bangladesh to a "civilised" state from its current "barbaric" existence may not be looked upon kindly by many.

"The chief adviser has introduced such an objectionable and controversial subject, which is extremely reactionary from social and philosophical as well as political viewpoints," said the University Teachers Network in a statement on October 19. "We believe it was condemnable and hateful the way he twice in his speech created a 'barbarism' and 'civilisation' binary," the statement said.

Apart from those ill-chosen words and the general rhetoric, there are serious questions about the content of the Charter, as well as what goal the signing is designed to achieve. The general understanding is that the Charter is about reforms - constitutional as well as administrative reforms, which will create a more democratic framework and prevent any future slide towards authoritarianism.

Skewed version of history

The Charter certainly contains a series of proposals that, if sustained, would nudge Bangladesh towards a more accountable, pluralistic political culture. These include the reinstatement of the caretaker system for holding elections and the provision for a 10-year lifetime limit on anyone serving as prime minister.

But it also contains proposals that could store trouble for the future, with the potential to create instability. For instance, what is the point of increasing the power of the President, with the authority to make key appointments without the consent of the cabinet? Could this bring the directly-elected government, which is accountable to parliament, into conflict with an indirectly-elected President who is accountable to no one?

However, the Commission seems to have spent a great deal of time and energy on presenting a skewed version of the country's history. The Charter's Context section airbrushes out the Awami League and the independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from the historical narrative. It then proceeds to heap the blame for all the nation's ills on the same party.

The Charter seems designed to exonerate the BNP of its own guilt. For instance, it blames the AL for the military intervention of 2007 known as One-Eleven, and labels the resultant caretaker government "abnormal." But it conveniently forgets that the military intervention, with full international backing, came in response to a crisis that was triggered by the BNP's clumsy attempt to manipulate the caretaker government with an aim, possibly, to rig the 2007 elections in the first place.

Selective amnesia strikes again when referring to extra-judicial killings. The Charter refers to the killings under the AL after 2009. But forgets to mention that it was the BNP which established the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in 2004 and ushered in the era of institutionalised extra-judicial killings.

Consensus or not

A lot of people had hoped - naively, as it turned out - that the fall of Sheikh Hasina last year would lead to a dramatic transformation in the nation's political culture and ways of doing things. But more than a year later, it is clear that the old ways of doing things remain the country's default setting.

The Charter was supposed to be a celebration of the success of last year's anti-AL movement, and a road-map to a better future for Bangladesh. But the final document was unveiled with some glaring flaws, which no amount of pre-event hype or rhetoric from the podium or even post-event propaganda could erase.

For starters, the speeches from the podium described the event as establishing a "national consensus." Was that really the case?

Out of the 84 proposals contained in the Charter, only 31 have the support of all the parties that took part in the deliberations. The rest 53 proposals had various numbers of 'Notes of Dissent' or outright disagreement.  Worse, of the 48 proposals that were classed as "requiring amendment to the constitution," only 16 had no notes of dissent or outright disagreement. 

Over the past few months, 30 political parties were invited to engage with the Consensus Commission and discuss proposals tabled by the six Commissions appointed by the interim government. The choice of the parties exposed the inherent partisan nature of the process and a denial of agency to a swathe of political opinion in the country.

BNP in, AL out

Among the participants, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami were clearly the major players. The recently-formed National Citizens Party (NCP) is significant not because of their popular support, which remains untested, but because the party was formed by former student leaders who played major roles in last year's protests, which led to the end of the Awami League's 15-year rule.

But it is doubtful if any of the other 20-odd parties could muster one seat on their own in a free and fair election.

On the other hand, the Awami League, the party which polled, on average, the biggest share of votes between 1991 and 2009, and the third-largest Jatiya Party were shut out of the process. The AL, which may or may not have suffered a catastrophic loss of support due to last year's police action against protesters, is now the designated "enemy", and JP is identified as their "lackey."

A whole host of other parties in the AL-led 14-party alliance, such as the Workers' Party, one faction of JSD etc, were also shut out of the reforms consultation. 

Given such omission, it is highly ambitious, to put it politely, to claim that the signing of the July Charter by 24 parties represents some sort of 'national unity' or 'consensus.' At best, it can be described as 'unity of purpose' among stakeholders of the current dispensation, the beneficiaries of the uprising of 2024. But even that is far from a done deal.

Only 3 parties matter

In truth, the number of parties signing is not the real issue here. The numbers - whether 24 or 54 - do no more than provide a false impression of a broad consensus. It has more propaganda value than actual political value. It is like the image of political leaders standing and holding up signed copies of the Charter to create the illusion of unity.

At the end of the day, it is the BNP, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the NCP that matter. It is their views that ultimately count for something, and here we see a serious divergence of views.

The Jamaat's position, that the Charter be given legal basis through a referendum before the elections, and then make the elected parliament legally-bound to implement its proposals in their entirety, is nothing short of authoritarian. Ironically, it is this kind of diktat that the proposals of the Charter were designed to forestall.

The NCP's position is fraught with legal complications - for today and the future. They want Dr Yunus himself, rather than the President, to sign a "constitutional order" to implement the Charter. This, presumably, would pave the way for NCP to sign the Charter, which would then be put to a referendum.

How such an order without the President's signature could be deemed legal is something constitutional experts would need to debate. 

In the middle stands BNP with what appears to be a more moderate stance. They have made their views clear on the reform proposals by registering dissent on the items they simply cannot live with, but without getting in the way of the Charter coming into being. They want a referendum on the same day as the elections.

It is now up to the Consensus Commission to find a way out of these three, and for Dr Yunus to decide how he wants to end the tenure of the interim government, which may have already overstayed its welcome.

The writer is former Head of BBC Bangla and former Managing Editor of VOA Bangla. The writer can be contacted at: sabir.mustafa@gmail.com. Follow on X: @Sabir59