Letting the people decide: Why the interim government must step back from referendum campaigning

Bangladesh's current debate over the interim government's visible advocacy for a "Yes" vote in the July National Charter referendum raises a fundamental question about democratic transitions. It is not a question about the substance of reform, nor about the merits of the July Charter itself. It is a question about role, legitimacy, and restraint at a moment when political authority remains unsettled.

After three contested national elections in 2014, 2018, and 2024, public confidence in electoral institutions has been fragile. The July 2024 mass uprising reflected a broad demand for change, accountability, and institutional renewal. The interim government that followed emerged not through an electoral mandate but through political necessity and public acceptance during an extraordinary moment.

That origin gave it a stabilising role, but it also imposed limits on the kind of authority it can legitimately exercise. Accordingly, it is expected to administer the transition, safeguard procedural fairness, and avoid steering substantive political outcomes. Standards appropriate to elected political governments cannot be mechanically applied to unelected interim authorities without altering the nature of the transition itself.

Historically, Bangladesh addressed such moments through a constitutionally defined caretaker government. That framework, now abolished, was deliberately narrow in scope and time with the sole task being to administer elections and ensure procedural fairness. Political advocacy was neither expected nor permitted, because neutrality was the basis of its legitimacy.

The absence of a comparable constitutional mechanism today has produced an interim arrangement that does not fit comfortably within established categories. It is neither elected nor judicially constituted, and its authority rests largely on consent rather than codified mandate.

Yet this framing is precisely what has unsettled many observers. If the caretaker system was abolished to prevent unelected actors from exercising political influence, can an interim authority lacking constitutional definition legitimately claim broader political latitude than the caretaker it apparently replaced? And if advocacy is justified primarily through moral legitimacy rather than constitutional clarity, does this risk establishing a precedent in which extraordinary moments permanently loosen democratic restraint?

Although the Supreme Court has restored the caretaker government framework, it has confined its application to elections from the 14th Parliament onward – a prospective compromise that may give rise to further constitutional questions and resulting unforeseen complications. In a constitutional climate where political disputes are routinely drawn into the courts, it would be naïve to assume that a referendum conducted under an interim authority will be immune from future judicial scrutiny. It is within this ambiguity that the present controversy has emerged.

Members of the interim administration have argued that there is no explicit constitutional or statutory prohibition on government advocacy in a referendum. Unlike elections, referendums are votes on proposals rather than contests between candidates. They have also suggested that the July National Charter carries special moral weight as a product of sacrifice and popular mobilisation, and that supporting it amounts to stewardship rather than partisanship.

Yet this reasoning risks conflating moral authority with democratic role. Interim governments exist precisely because ordinary political competition has broken down. Their legitimacy flows from the need to stabilise institutions, ensure procedural fairness, and create conditions for a credible return to representative politics. Steering substantive political outcomes, even through non-coercive advocacy, sits uneasily with that purpose.

Comparative examples have been invoked to normalise government campaigning in referendums. In the UK during the Brexit vote, in France during constitutional referendums, and in Scotland's independence process, sitting leaders openly advocated particular outcomes. However, these cases shared features that Bangladesh's current situation does not. Those governments were elected, embedded in stable constitutional orders, and accountable through regular electoral mechanisms. Advocacy in those contexts occurred within a system of political symmetry which is not the case here.

The reassurance "no electoral stake" underestimates the nature of power in transitional settings and does not necessarily mean no power. Interim governments control administrative machinery, public messaging, and the symbolic authority of national rescue at a time when political institutions are still being rebuilt. Even without formal coercion, state advocacy in such settings can distort the democratic field.

Democracy depends not only on the absence of force but on a reasonable balance of influence. When an unelected authority urges a particular outcome, a referendum risks becoming a state-endorsed verdict rather than an unencumbered popular choice.

The core issue, then, is not opposition to reform but clarity of role. In a referendum, democratic authority rests with the electorate itself. When an interim government confines itself to explaining the process, ensuring access to information, protecting dissent, and safeguarding the vote, it demonstrates respect for that popular mandate. However, when it campaigns actively for a particular outcome, it risks substituting its own judgement for the people's and narrowing the space for genuine democratic choice.

Unlike elected governments, interim administrations do not draw legitimacy from the ballot box but from public acceptance at a particular moment. In mid-2024, that moment was marked by an unusually unified demand for change. Since then, public opinion has shifted and fragmented, shaped by economic pressures, political disagreement, and uncertainty over the sequencing and fate of reform.

When authority rests heavily on public mood rather than electoral mandate, fluctuations in that mood matter. Active state advocacy in a referendum risks entangling the government in contested opinion rather than positioning it as a neutral guarantor of the people's decision. The use of state resources to promote a particular choice further raises questions about legitimacy in an already fragile transition.

Arguments advanced in favour of interim government advocacy often rely on the extraordinary legitimacy of the 2024 uprising as a form of constituent legitimacy, understood as the people's collective authority to demand foundational change outside ordinary politics. But this form of legitimacy is political and time-bound rather than constitutional, and it tends to overestimate the durability of post-uprising consensus once governance begins.

Substantive advocacy also carries institutional implications. Campaigning implies a form of political ownership over the outcome. Ownership, in turn, raises the question of mandate. If a government wishes to persuade, mobilise, and campaign, it requires democratic authorisation to do so. That authorisation can come only through an elected parliament or a clearly defined caretaker framework designed to separate administration from political advocacy.

Bangladesh's institutional failures and demand for reform is real as is the urgency of renewal. But in transitional moments, restraint is not a weakness. It is the condition that allows reform to be received as legitimate rather than imposed. Interim authorities are credible when they act as referees rather than players. Preserving that distinction may be less dramatic than campaigning, but it is far more likely to secure democratic trust in what comes next.

That is why we say unequivocally, "Referendum politicking is not the job of an interim government."

Prof Syed Munir Khasru is chairman of the international think tank The Institute for Policy, Advocacy and Governance (IPAG) and Dr Cynthia Farid is a lawyer and legal scholar.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.