WASHINGTON—On February 12, Bangladesh held its first democratic elections since widespread protests ousted the government of Sheikh Hasina, who was prime minister from 1996 to 2001 and again from 2009 to 2024.
During the past year and half, during which an interim government was led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, political parties within the country came together to draft the July Charter. This charter is a redrafting of Bangladesh’s constitution that proposes multiple important changes to the document that has served as the country’s foundational creed since 1972. The changes include explicitly outlining the rights of citizens, adding term limits for the prime minister, creating a bicameral legislature, and establishing more stringent oversight and anti-corruption institutions.
In the February 12 election, voters gave the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) a majority in parliament, making the BNP’s Tarique Rahman the country’s new prime minister. But the voters—through a referendum—also approved the adoption of the July Charter as the country’s new constitution.
The BNP, which ran on a platform of widespread financial assistance and plans to make Bangladesh a trillion-dollar economy by 2034, benefitted from widespread animosity toward Hasina’s banned Awami Leage party. Now, however, it comes to power with the mandate of adopting and implementing the sweeping reforms laid out in the charter.
Whether the new government is willing and able to do so could determine the future of liberal democracy in Bangladesh.
The story of the data: Political decline and executive aggrandizement
Data from the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes paints a grim picture of Bangladesh’s democratic trajectory over the past three decades. No country in South and Central Asia has experienced bigger declines in political freedom since 1995, with a significant erosion of political rights and legislative powers since the late 2000s.
Political rights and constraints on the executive have dropped sharply since late 2000s
From a rule-of-law standpoint, Bangladesh has experienced the seventh largest drop in judicial independence and effectiveness in the world since 1995. As a result, corruption has thrived.
Judicial independence has drastically declined amid persistent corruption
How might the new government reverse this downward trajectory? The Freedom and Prosperity Indexes broadly show that political freedom and the rule of law are critical for advancing prosperity. Therefore, implementing the judicial, electoral, and rights-related reforms laid out in the July Charter could be important steps toward the BNP realizing its vision for national prosperity.
Lessons from Nepal: The tedious nature of constitutional overhaul
Numerous countries around the world, including Ecuador, Bolivia, and Tunisia, have adopted new constitutions since the turn of the century. But Bangladesh has only to look as far as Nepal to see that effectively implementing constitutional reforms is easier said than done.
While Nepal is different from Bangladesh in that it adopted its current constitution in 2015 in the aftermath of a decades-long civil conflict, there are some broad similarities. Like the Bangladesh’s July Charter proposes, Nepal’s constitution created a bicameral parliamentary system designed to institutionalize democracy in a country that previously experienced high levels of corruption and limited political freedom.
On the surface, Nepal even looked like a democratic success story. The interim constitution that it adopted after the end of the insurgency in 2006, and the permanent constitution it took up in 2015, helped propel the country to the highest levels of political freedom in the South and Central Asia region.
Elevated rights and institutional powers, however, were not enough to prevent the Gen Z-led uprising that overthrew the government in September 2025. These protests were sparked most immediately by government bans on social media, but they reflected deeper frustration with persistent corruption and a lack of economic opportunity for young people. It is these frustrations that Nepal’s new government—set to be led by thirty-five-year old former rapper Balendra Shah—will have to address.
What this shows is that public satisfaction with democratic governance is profoundly rooted in economic opportunity. A lack of economic opportunity paired with perceptions of corruption is a recipe for unrest.
What should Bangladesh’s new government prioritize?
While the situations of Bangladesh and Nepal are by no means identical, the BNP would be wise to take lessons from its regional neighbor seriously. Combining these lessons with the shortcomings that Hasina’s anti-democratic regimes illuminated in Bangladesh’s previous constitution is the best blueprint for institutionalizing democracy in the world’s eighth most populous country.
All of the reforms outlined in the July Charter should be adopted in accordance with the preferences of voters, but the new government should prioritize implementing two reforms in particular:
- Elevating the Anti-Corruption Commission from a statutory institution to a constitutional body and embracing the charter’s proposed anti-corruption articles. The new BNP-led government must enact articles 72, 73, and 74, which call for publicizing the owners of companies, trusts, and foundations, for making political party finance information transparent, and for requiring public representatives to disclose their own and their family’s income and assets to the Election Commission, respectively. Prioritizing these measures within the charter will help the new government establish legitimacy and ease public grievances.
- Changing the process for declaring a state of emergency. The July Charter credits the arbitrary use of emergency declarations as one of the tools that enabled Hasina’s systematic erosion of democracy. Provision 2 of article 6 within the charter calls for cabinet approval and oversight from the opposition leader for any declaration of a state of emergency rather than simply requiring the prime minister’s signature. By broadening the scope of review for state of emergency declarations and mandating the opposition’s involvement, the government can enhance the transparency of such a declaration and mitigate the risk of executive aggrandizement. Implementing this provision can serve as a stepping stone toward institutionalizing democracy in the long term.
By prioritizing these specific reforms and pairing them with broader measures to advance political freedom and institutional integrity, the BNP can most effectively live up to the mandate it was given by Bangladeshi voters.
Of course, as the example of Nepal (and countless other countries) shows, political freedom and the rule of law must be paired with a focus on creating economic opportunity, especially for the vast swaths of young people that are a feature of many countries in Southeast Asia.
Conversely, however, the Freedom and Prosperity Indexes show that institutionalized democracy and economic liberalization are the most effective catalysts for long-term prosperity.