New Delhi, Feb 18 (IANS) A resurgent Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami is asserting itself politically, as is evident from its anted-up position on immediate constitutional reforms, directing its ire at the newly-formed government led by BNP’s Tarique Rahman.
In June last year, the registration of Bangladesh’s largest Islamic party was restored more than a decade after it was banned by the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government.
Its re-emergence follows a turbulent past where the party faced legal restrictions and political isolation over its opposition to Bangladesh’s 1971 independence and the wartime activities of some of its leaders.
Jamaat’s return to parliamentary politics has been framed by some commentators as a rehabilitation into mainstream contestation, but others see it as a worrying normalisation of a party with a controversial past.
The Islamist party sought the formation of the new Parliament as a constituent assembly to amend Bangladesh’s constitution and introduce wide changes as laid down in the “July Charter”, a package of constitutional reforms proposed and promoted by the Muhammad Yunus-led interim administration after the 2024 uprising in Bangladesh. It aims to reshape key institutions, strengthen checks and balances, and reset the rules governing executive power, the judiciary, and electoral arrangements.
A Constitutional Reform Council was envisaged to oversee and implement the Charter’s amendments and the broader reform roadmap.
However, Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), a reluctant signatory to the Charter, wants to abide by the rulebooks. Party leaders stressed that there is no constitutional provision for a “Constitutional Reform Council”.
Also, Bangladesh’s Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) does not have the authority to administer an oath for such a body. It is the CEC that administered the oath of office to MPs on Tuesday.
The Jamaat may not have been able to form a government, but it has registered dramatic gains in vote share and number of seats in last week’s election. Its assertive posture and renewed outreach to student politics have left analysts and rivals warning that the party will be a disruptive and influential actor in Bangladesh’s politics in the future.
Its performance in the 13th national election marked a historic comeback from the margins. Official tallies and party statements show the party secured its best-ever vote share and seat count, getting 31.76 per cent of the mandate and winning 68 seats.
These figures transformed Jamaat from a peripheral actor into the main opposition force in parliament.
“The Jamaat had successfully spread its influence in regions bordering India among the population settled there who moved out of India after partition. The BNP was comparatively weaker in these areas. However, neither could post any gains here earlier due to the Awami League’s dominance,” contended Soumya Bandopadhyay, Consulting Editor to Bangladesh’s Prothom Alo newspaper.
“Now the political space lies open for the Jamaat in Khulna, Rajshahi, and Rangpur divisions,” added the veteran journalist.
Citing statistics, the Delhi-based scribe pointed out that the Jamaat, when contesting on its own, earlier got its “best results” in 1991.
“They had then won 18 seats, with 12 per cent of the total mandate. In 1996, their seat tally fell to three, and their vote percentage to nine,” he recounted.
“In 2001 and 2008, when the Jamaat contested in alliance with the BNP, it won 17 seats, with a four per cent share in the first, and two wins and a vote share of five in the next,” he said, adding: “That has jumped to about 32 per cent now.”
Overall, the BNP-led alliance won 212 seats, followed by 77 for the Jamaat-led alliance, out of the 297 parliamentary seats for which results were announced. Out of the 300 seats in the Bangladesh Parliament, elections were held for 299 seats following the death of a candidate. Later, a court barred the publication of results for Chattogram‑3 and Chattogram‑8 constituencies, thus the latest results reflecting outcome of voting for 297 seats.
The National Citizen Party (NCP), founded by a section of the 2024 youth protestors, aligned with the Jamaat and came in third, winning six of the 30 seats it contested. Fifty other members are nominated to Parliament, based on the votes secured by the political parties in 300 constituencies. NCP leader Nahid Islam, 27, also won, becoming one of the youngest MPs in the new parliament.
–IANS
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