BANGLADESH stands at a political crossroads once again. Fourteen months after the August 2024 student uprising toppled Sheikh Hasina’s long-entrenched government, the nation’s political forces have signed what they are calling a historic social contract — the July National Charter 2025. The event was framed as the roadmap for a ‘new Bangladesh’. It promises to rebuild the country’s democratic system before the 2026 elections. But beneath the ceremony and speeches lies an unknown tension: can lofty reforms survive the old habits of power?
The signing ceremony of the July Charter was held on the national parliament premises on October 17. Major political players like the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami stood united behind the document. Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel laureate-turned-political custodian, called it ‘a second independence.’ Yet the mood outside was less celebratory. The newly formed National Citizen Party (NCP) boycotted the event. The party reasoned that the charter lacked both clarity and courage, whereas the NCP was formed from the same student movement that ignited the revolution. Moreover, scuffles between the protesters and police and tear-gas-filled streets made the nation’s old question resurface: who will own the revolution’s legacy?
The charter will now face a referendum, although the date has not yet been set and has become a point of contention. But, the incumbent interim government has tried to exhibit the programme as a historic event. ‘With the signing of this charter, we have been reborn — we have initiated a new Bangladesh,’ interim government leader Muhammad Yunus said at the signing ceremony, which was delayed due to rain and preceded by scuffles between police and protesters(injured participants from July uprising) on the parliament’s premises.
‘We thought we might reach agreement on only a handful of issues, but today, we have a long list of reform agreements. Our politicians and the members of the Consensus Committee have made the impossible possible,’ Yunus said.
The July Charter is sweeping in ambition. It lays out 84 reform measures — half requiring constitutional surgery — to dismantle the authoritarian scaffolding of the past decade. The proposal for a bicameral parliament aims to diffuse power; a two-term limit for prime ministers seeks to end the cult of permanence. The presidency, long ceremonial, would gain teeth through secret-ballot elections and new impeachment safeguards.
‘Our new journey will begin through the July Charter. Strong democratic institutions will be established, constitutional bodies will be built, and balance will be ensured in all sectors of the state. No organ of the state will be able to assert dominance over another.’ said Salahuddin Ahmed, a BNP standing committee member.
The party is also opposed to a clause in the charter that prevents the prime minister from holding two positions, which means a premier cannot simultaneously lead a political party. In addition, the BNP is opposed to provisions on using bipartisan parliamentary committees to appoint heads of certain key bodies such as the anti-corruption commission, although the party supports such a mechanism for the election commission.
The charter envisions judicial independence by forming Judicial Appointment Commission, decentralising Supreme Court benches, and disclosing public assets of judges. It is believed that this could finally separate law from politics. Administrative reforms, too, promise a leaner, more accountable bureaucracy with independent commissions for civil service, education and health. Even the Election Commission would be reborn through consensus, not control.
Women’s representation receives rare prominence: 100 seats reserved in parliament. So does the revival of the caretaker government system — a hard-won demand meant to guard against electoral manipulation. Together, these reforms sketch a more balanced, pluralistic Bangladesh — at least on paper.
The NCP, one of those currently boycotting the charter, has said that it must be supported by a formal government directive and legal instrument issued by Yunus, thereby making it binding. ‘Signing the charter order without a legal foundation would be meaningless,’ Nahid Islam, founder of the NCP, said at a press conference on October 16.
The interim government has promised a national referendum to legitimise the July National Charter 2025. Obviously, it is a rare moment for the people, who will be given an opportunity to judge the architecture of their new democracy. However, this supposed moment of unity has fractured into another political contest. Jamaat-e-Islami wants the referendum held swiftly in November, arguing that delay risks draining the revolution’s momentum. The BNP insists it should coincide with the national elections in February due to economic and logistic challenges. The calendar, once a bureaucratic detail, has now become another battlefield of legitimacy.
Caught in this tug-of-war, the National Consensus Commission — the body that midwifed the charter — has been granted a brief lease of life until the end of October. Its task is unenviable: to broker peace between parties that share a reformist language but not a timeline. Each camp claims to defend democracy, yet their visions of urgency and caution pull in opposite directions.
Sensing the political drift, the interim government has left the door ajar for reconciliation. Parties that boycotted the signing — including the fiery student-led National Citizen Party — have been told they can still endorse the charter later. It is a gesture meant to project inclusivity, though sceptics see it as a tactical attempt to quiet dissent rather than a genuine invitation to dialogue.
More than 30 political parties had a seat at the table when the reform blueprint was drafted. But the most conspicuous absence — the Awami League and its allies — hangs heavily over the process. Once the country’s dominant political machine, the party now exists in political limbo, effectively banned and stripped of its voice in shaping the new order. For many, this exclusion symbolises both justice and danger: justice for years of repression, danger for the balance of pluralism the revolution had promised.
And so, the referendum — meant to close one chapter and open another — has instead deepened the fog of transition. Bangladesh stands poised between past and promise, between the euphoria of revolution and the grind of rebuilding. Whether the charter can become more than parchment depends not only on votes cast, but on whether a fractured political class can finally agree on what the ‘new Bangladesh’ should mean.
Yet, paper is fragile. The exclusion of the Awami League and sporadic dissent from the revolutionary youth suggests that the dream of a ‘post-revolution democracy’ is still unfinished. The July National Charter 2025 may well be the most ambitious reform document since independence — but its survival will depend not on promises made in marble halls, but on whether a weary nation can turn protest into principle, and revolution into rule.
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MA Hossain is a political and defence analyst based in Bangladesh.
