Alongside last week’s parliamentary election in Bangladesh, voters also cast their ballots in a national referendum on important constitutional reforms proposed for the country following the July 2024 uprising and ousting of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.The July National Charter, which most political parties signed last year, was approved by 60.26 percent of voters.But that vote has now exposed a schism between the victorious Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Tarique Rahman, and the opposition, led by Jamaat-e-Islami.On Tuesday, newly elected BNP members of parliament refused to take an oath as members of a new Constitution Reform Council, throwing the future of reforms into doubt.We break down what the national referendum in Bangladesh was all about, why the country is divided on it and what happens next.What is the context?In July 2024, students in Bangladesh began protesting against a conventional job quota system, which reserved a significant share of prized government jobs for descendants of Bangladesh’s freedom fighters of 1971, now widely regarded as the political elite.Hasina ordered a brutal crackdown as the protests escalated. Nearly 1,400 people were killed, and more than 20,000 were wounded, according to the country’s International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), which later found Hasina guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced her to death. She is currently in exile in India, where she fled after her ouster.After Hasina went into exile, her Awami League party, which had been in power for 15 years under her leadership, was also banned from all political activities. The latest election was the first since the uprising. Advertisement What is the July Charter?After Hasina was ousted, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took over as the country’s interim leader of a caretaker government in Au …
