Asia and Oceania

Bangladesh
Last reviewed: 22 July 2009

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HISTORY

Before the independence of India and Pakistan, the territory formed part of the Indian provinces of Bengal and Assam. Following partition in 1947, East Bengal, with a Muslim majority population, emerged as the eastern wing of Pakistan.

During the period of East and West Pakistan there was a growing sense of Bengali nationalism, stimulated in part by the insensitivity of the central Government in West Pakistan, particularly on language (Urdu was declared the official language although few in East Pakistan spoke it).

In the 1970 general elections the Awami League (AL), a Bengali nationalist party led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a landslide victory in East Pakistan. Since the East had the larger population this gave it an absolute majority in the national parliament. After West Pakistan failed to recognise the AL's majority, Sheikh Mujib launched a secessionist uprising. The Pakistan Government responded with vicious military tactics, including the targeted murder of “intellectuals” (including many Hindus) and mass rape. This eventually led to the intervention of the Indian army and the new state of Bangladesh was declared independent on 16 December 1971.

Sheikh Mujib became the first President and then Prime Minister of Bangladesh. His AL government introduced a secular and democratic constitution in 1972. In December 1974, facing growing economic difficulties, the government declared a state of emergency and a month later amended the constitution, replacing parliamentary rule with an executive presidency and providing for the introduction of one party rule.

Sheikh Mujib, who had assumed the role of President, was assassinated in August 1975 in a military coup. The Army, under its new Chief of Staff General Zia ur Rahman, took control. Zia became President in 1977 and set up his own political party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). In May 1981 he too was assassinated by a group of army officers. The Vice-President, Abdus Sattar, was elected the new Head of State a few months later.

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Ershad overthrew President Sattar in a bloodless coup, in 1982. Ershad suspended the constitution and re-imposed martial law. He founded his own political party, the Jana Dal and declared himself President in 1983. The following year he began talks with the two opposition alliances - one led by Sheikh Mujibur daughter, Sheikh Hasina, and the other led by Begum Khaleda Zia, Zia ur Rahman's widow. In 1986 Ershad's renamed party, the Jatiya Party, won parliamentary and presidential elections and martial law was lifted. The main opposition political parties forced Ershad to step down in December 1990 when he lost army support after massive protest demonstrations.

With the support of all opposition parties, Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed assumed the post of Acting President, appointed a neutral caretaker government and conducted general elections in February 1991. Khaleda Zia's BNP won a surprise victory and she took office as Prime Minister. The constitution was amended and a return to Parliamentary rule approved in a referendum in September 1991. Abdur Rahman Biswas was elected to the now largely ceremonial office of President, while Shahabuddin Ahmed returned to his post as Chief Justice (he was re-elected as President in 1996).

All the main opposition parties boycotted the next general elections, in February 1996. Although a new BNP government was sworn in, opposition agitation increased, bringing the economy near to collapse. The government resigned in March following a constitutional amendment which provided for a caretaker Government. Fresh elections were held on 12 June under a caretaker Government. These elections were conducted peacefully, with a high turnout of voters. The AL won most seats and formed the Government with Sheikh Hasina becoming the Prime Minister.

In the summer of 1997 the opposition staged a walk-out from parliament, complaining about harassment of BNP members and about their treatment in parliament where they claimed they were not getting their due in terms of speaking time and seats on select committees. The government and the BNP reached an agreement in March 1998 which led to the return of the BNP to parliament, but they subsequently staged further walk-outs and political strikes or hartals. This pattern continued on and off throughout the next three years. Efforts by the Speaker to get the Opposition to return to parliament failed and public invitations by the Prime Minister to the Leader of the Opposition were rejected.

In the elections held in October 2001, the BNP-led 4 Party Alliance won an overall majority with 219 seats out of 300 (BNP – 196 seats; Jamaat-e-Islami –17 seats; the JPN – 4 seats; and the IOJ – 2 seats). The Awami League won 58 seats. International observers reported that the election was generally free and fair although there were reports of election-related violence, ballot rigging and other election malpractice. However the AL publicly refused to accept the result. From 2001 – 2006 AL attendance in Parliament has been sporadic, and AL MPs complain of discrimination by the BNP Speaker.

In the summer of 2006 opposition parties, led by the Awami League (AL), claimed that the BNP-led government was seeking to manipulate Bangladesh’s electoral infrastructure and announced in January 2007, a boycott of the general election.

Against this background of serious differences between the two main parties, on 11 January 2007, the President declared a state of emergency and resigned his supplementary role as Chief Adviser. On 12 January 2007 Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former Governor of the Bangladesh Central Bank, was sworn in as the new Chief Adviser of a reconstituted Caretaker Government promising to hold the election in December 2008. The Awami League (AL)-led Grand Alliance won an election widely regarded as free, fair and neutralon 29 December 2008. Sheikh Hasina took on the role of Prime Minister for the second time.

BBC News Country Timeline: Bangladesh