Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
The transition to democracy in bangladesh after the overthrow of the authoritarian regime in 1990 began with the formation of a non-political caretaker administration (NCA) to prepare the ground for the transfer of power to a popularly mandated government. Its other important purpose was to manage the affairs of the state during the interlude that separated the dissolution of the authoritarian regime (December 1990) and the complete installation of the democratically-elected government (September 1991) to rule the country in its own right.
The need for this NCA was imperative in the wake of the dismantling of authoritarian rule. The attempts of the ousted regime to conduct a third election, while still in power, were not acceptable to its political adversaries, given the former's proven tendency to unduly inf luence the electoral process in the past.
1 The regime arranged one election in 1986 and another in 1988. The party it had ousted from power in March 1982 boycotted both. The other major opposition party participated in the first one but refrained from doing so in the second. The regime-sponsored Jatiya Party (JP) heavily rigged both elections. For details on these elections, see Huque, Ahmed S. and Hakim, Muhammad A., ‘Elections in Bangladesh: Tools of Legitimacy’, Asian Affairs: An American Review, 19:4 (1993), pp. 248–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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24 Teams came from the United States, Britain, Japan, Malaysia and the European Community. There was also a team representing the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and several local NGOs, which monitored the polls.
25 There was, however, sporadic violence in some parts of the country. Voting was postponed in some constituencies where the situation went beyond the control of the election and law-enforcing personnel and inter-party violence claimed the lives of several people. The NCA reacted sharply to these incidents and promptly suspended five local councils for their failure to maintain law and order. Timm and Gain, op. cit., p. 70.
26 Before the 12th Amendment Bill introducing the parliamentary system was enacted, another Act was passed enabling the acting president to return to the Supreme Court as the Chief Justice. It was a special arrangement made at the personal request of Justice Ahmed.
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32 According to this model, the incumbent prime minister and the cabinet would resign with the announcement of the election schedules by the EC following the dissolution of parliament by the president. He would then appoint a new prime minister either from among the judges of the SC Appellate Division (AD) or a retiredjudge of the AD or a neutral non-partisan person to head the NCA. The caretaker prime minister, acting as the chief executive of the government under Article 55 of the constitution, would form a cabinet with persons known for their neutrality, i.e., they would not be members of any political party and, like the head of the NCA, would be debarred from standing as candidates in the parliamentary elections. The main responsibility of the NCA would be to ensure free and fair elections and it would perform only emergency and routine state functions as envisaged in the constitution. The new parliament would legalize this arrangement by amending the constitution, providing for an NCA to conduct at least three parliamentary elections in future. Inquilab, 29 June 1994.
33 The BNP model proposed an interim national government to supervise the elections. It was to consist of a cabinet of ten members of parliament, equally representing the government and the opposition, to be headed by the incumbent prime minister.
34 According to their new formula the president, in consultation with the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, would appoint an impartial person, either a sitting SC judge, a retiredjudge or any dignified person acceptable to both sides, as head of the NCA. Half of the ten non-partisan members of the ‘cabinet’ would be nominated by the prime minister and the other half by the opposition leader.
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47 An event during the term of the 1996 NCA had profound political and administrative ramifications and demonstrates the snares of dyarchy. The president unilaterally took action against the chief of the army and some of his associates who were accused of plotting a coup to seize power. On the day the coup plan came to his knowledge he went on television without informing the caretaker prime minister. He had the perpetrators arrested and later dismissed them from service without the NCA’s concurrence. The prime minister took exception to the president’s behaviour and himself addressed the nation explaining his position. Kochanek, op. cit., p. 138; Asia Week, 7 June 1996.
48 See, Hakim, Bangladesh Politics, op. cit., App. V.
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