Full circle: Birth, death and rebirth of caretaker govt
As the caretaker government system gets revived today with the High Court scrapping a few sections of the 15th Amendment of the Constitution enacted in 2011, here’s a look back to how the system was born, died and got revived again
It was February 1996.
Khaleda Zia-led BNP, which was elected in the previous 1991 elections, was re-elected with a staggering 278 seats.
But there was a catch: as BNP was running for office for its second consecutive term, all the major opposition parties, including the Awami League, Jatiya Party, and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, boycotted the election, demanding the polling be held again under a neutral, caretaker government.
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The concept of a caretaker government wasn't new in Bangladesh.
Birth of caretaker government system
During General Ershad's reign in 1990, the three party alliances — BNP, AL, and the five leftist parties — demanded a better election environment.
Ershad then appointed the then-chief justice Shahabuddin Ahmed as the vice president. This was styled an interim government.
The three-party alliances nominated him for the role of chief adviser, and Shahabuddin formed the country's first advisory government as Ershad left the office before the 1991 elections after ruling the nation for eight years.
The three parties happily participated in the elections, and as you already know, BNP won while AL took the opposition's seat.
But this unity of the three parties only lasted for three years.
Fast forward to 1994, the unity of the three-party alliance started to tremble as they started having disagreements over how the head of the caretaker government would be selected.
Agitations and hartals followed.
The AL held 100 days of country-wide hartals between 1994 and 1996, followed by blockades and non-cooperation movements, which forced the then BNP-led government to introduce the caretaker government system in the Constitution.
Thus, the caretaker government system — the formation of a non-partisan government for the sake of free and fair elections — was legalised through the 13th amendment of Bangladesh's Constitution on 26 March 1996.
This amendment was made during the very short-lived 6th Parliament, which had a lifespan of only four months!
What followed was, for the first time in Bangladesh's history, two elections were held in the same year.
In the second election of 1996, held in June, AL won with 146 votes and returned to power after 21 years in a peaceful transition.
And the peace did remain … just for one term till 2001.
Crisis emerged again
All hell broke loose before the 2006 elections as the major political parties started disagreeing over the head of the caretaker government again.
Even though Justice KM Hasan was supposed to be the chief justice to lead the caretaker government, then president Iajuddin Ahmed assumed the office as chief adviser as per the advice of BNP, who came to power in 2001 via a peaceful transition.
With the political crisis at an all-time high, Iajuddin's caretaker government was short-lived. It failed to hold an election. And Iajuddin, along with three of his advisers, resigned.
So, in 2007, another caretaker government was formed, led by Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former governor of Bangladesh Bank.
Hasina's 15-yrs autocratic rule
In 2009, the Fakhruddin-led caretaker government successfully held an election.
AL came back to power and thus began the controversial 15-year rule of Sheikh Hasina that amended Bangladesh's Constitution THREE TIMES, incorporating all sorts of amendments, including scrapping the caretaker government system in 2011 it protested for before returning to power.
BNP did not let it go that easy. It started protesting, which turned violent amid multiple government crackdowns. But Hasina and her AL government were determined in their decision.
It was Sheikh Hasina who led the Awami League's violent protests in 1996, forcing the then BNP government to amend the constitution and introduce the caretaker government system.
Alongside the street agitations during 1994-96, Hasina and her party also presented some models for the caretaker government.
They had proposed making the sitting chief justice or any other sitting judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court head of the caretaker government.
In a bill submitted to the Parliament Secretariat on 28 October 1993, the AL proposed amending Article 56 (4) of the Constitution and called for the formation of an interim caretaker government headed by the sitting chief justice.
However, within a decade and a half, she made a complete reversal by hastily abolishing the system in 2011 with the 15th Amendment.
The Hasina-led government didn't even pay heed to the Supreme Court verdict in abolishing the caretaker government in June 2011.
With the support of its two-thirds majority, the AL-led government abolished the caretaker government system and amended the Constitution even before the Supreme Court could release a copy of its full verdict.
By doing so, the government didn't even consider the other part of the court's verdict, which recommended keeping the caretaker government system and holding two more parliamentary polls for the sake of the security of the state and people.
With the monopoly Hasina established over state machinery – facilitated by constitutional amendments, including the abolition of the caretaker government system – her party secured three consecutive controversial elections under her partisan government.
This paved the way for an autocratic regime that suppressed democracy and disregarded the will of the people.
The regime continued its authoritarian rule until 5 August 2024, when it was ousted by a student-led mass uprising.
The rebirth of caretaker govt
Today (17 December), the High Court scrapped several sections of the 15th Amendment, including those that abolished the caretaker government system, stating that it was the will of the whole nation.
The verdict came four months after a student-led mass uprising resulting in Hasina fleeing to India.
While pronouncing the verdict today, the HC bench observed that the caretaker government is being revived as that is the will of the whole nation.
In its observations, the HC said the core of the Constitution lies in democracy, which can only be ensured through free, fair, and credible elections.
It added that the caretaker government system, introduced through political consensus, had become an essential component of the Constitution's basic framework.
"The beauty of the Constitution lies in empowering the people. The people are the source of all power," the court noted in its judgment, reinforcing the necessity of a mechanism to preserve democratic values.
The HC reiterated that the abolition of the caretaker government system disrupted the nation's democratic structure, as it was originally enacted to ensure impartial elections and foster political stability. The court observed, "Caretaker governments were formed through political consensus and have since become a fundamental part of the Constitution's foundation."
The ruling followed extensive hearings spanning 23 working days, during which key legal representatives from all concerned parties presented their arguments.
