Bangladesh at a critical post-Hasina crossroads

Sheikh Hasina ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist for over 15 years. But on August 5 she was forced to resign and flee the country as hundreds of thousands of people marched on the capital Dhaka and stormed her residence.

Until the very end, Hasina tried to hold on to power through the use of brute force. The final fortnight of her rule was marked by a violent crackdown on protesters that resulted in the deaths of 440 people.

What started as a non-partisan student movement for the removal of a system that allocated 56% of government jobs through quotas turned into a popular uprising that overthrew a dictator.

The country’s president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, the armed forces and political parties are now in the process of establishing a temporary “caretaker” government. The government will be led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who Hasina’s government had subjected to a longstanding campaign of judicial harassment for announcing plans to set up a “citizen power” political party in 2007.

Other members include a former governor of the Bangladesh Bank, Salehuddin Ahmed, as well as human rights activists, lawyers, academics and representatives from the student movement, the army and minority groups.

Bangladesh’s first caretaker government was formed in 1991 to oversee the transition to democracy after the fall of Hussain Muhammad Ershad’s military dictatorship. The arrangement was widely viewed as a success and was formalized through a constitutional amendment that provided the basis for caretaker governments to oversee elections in 1996, 2001 and 2006.

But in 2011 Hasina’s parliament changed the constitution and abolished the caretaker system. The decision led opposition parties to boycott subsequent elections, sealing