VoteGuard International Ltd, an Australian-based international organisation defending the rule of the electorate worldwide, welcomes the establishment of Bangladesh’s caretaker government and commends the commitments expressed in the July National Charter 2025 to restore free, fair, and credible elections in the country.
The Charter’s call to reintroduce a non-party caretaker administration for conducting national elections represents a historic and necessary step toward rebuilding public trust in the electoral process.
We do realise that such an administration has several limitations and uncertainties in its formation process, and, above all, it is not elected by the people. However, the country’s electoral history has shown that a party-led election-time government is, in general, less capable of ensuring a credible election than a non-party one. In other words, a non-party election-time government is more effective in guaranteeing that the people — rather than political parties or quarters — determine who governs.
According to internationally recognised democracy datasets, including Polity and V-Dem, the elections held under non-party caretaker administrations—in 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2008—were more credible and acceptable compared to all other national elections held in the country so far.
Overall, this historical evidence strongly supports the July Charter’s call for restoring a non-party election-time authority.
However, no electoral reform can be complete without addressing the core legal principle that electoral fraud itself constitutes an act of treason in countries with multiparty systems. In such systems, the people are the state. When electoral fraud occurs, it severs the link between the people and the government—amounting to a silent coup. Unless this principle is clearly established in law, existing treason provisions may continue to be misused by unlawfully elected regimes to silence opponents rather than to safeguard the people’s authority (not right) to choose their government.
VoteGuard International therefore calls on all constitutional reform bodies and lawmakers in Bangladesh to:
- Implement, without delay, the July National Charter’s provisions for a caretaker or non-party election-time administration; and
- Enact or amend national laws to define electoral fraud as an act of treason, carrying up to the highest legal penalties.
Together, these two reforms—at least for now—can restore constitutional integrity and ensure that the rule of the electorate—the people’s authority to choose their government—remains supreme over all political or institutional interests.
For the convenience of policymakers and legislators, VoteGuard International provides countries worldwide with a draft Global Model Law that defines and penalises electoral fraud as treason against the constitutional order. This draft may be adapted to suit national contexts, and a copy of the draft law is attached herewith for consideration.
Issued by:
Dr Abul Kalam Azad
Founder & Executive Director
