What is July Charter? What’s next for Bangladesh as voters say yes to constitution reforms

On Thursday (Feb 12), Tarique Rahman's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) secured a landslide victory in the national election. Apart from choosing the next government, the voters also gave their mandate for reforms in a national referendum - the July National Charter. As per the Bangladesh election commission, the referendum saw voter turnout of 60.26 per cent and the “yes” vote won a clear majority. Akhtar Ahmed, senior secretary of Bangladesh’s election commission, during a press conference, said that the official figures, 4,80,74,429 people voted “yes” in the referendum, while 2,25,65,627 voters went for “no”.

What's July Charter?

The July National Charter 2025 is a proposed constitutional reform package to decide what changes to make in the constitution of the country. The charter was made after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024. The proposed reform package talks about several reforms for good governance, democracy, and social justice through institutional reforms, so as to avoid "recurrence of authoritarian and fascist rule", reported news agency Reuters. Now, after getting a "yes" for the adoption of the July Charter, a Constitutional Reform Council will execute the reforms within 180 working days of its first session.

Key reforms

In the July Charter, which was named after the July uprising in 2024 leading to the ouster of Hasina, a key reform is the creation of an upper house with 100 seats, which will be allocated in accordance with each party’s national voter share. It also mentions putting a limit to the number of terms a prime minister can have, more representation of women in the parliament, election of opposition leaders as deputy speaker and parliamentary committee chairs, and enhanced powers of the President.