The trajectory of democratic transformation in Bangladesh: Issues of electoral and constitutional reforms

Despite holding regular elections and maintaining a parliamentary and constitutional framework, Bangladesh has been undergoing a profound democratic crisis for a long while, since the very beginning of its independence. Using secondary data from literature, reports, government documents, and media sources, this chapter critically explores the nature of this democratic crisis, not through statistics or institutional blueprints, but through the subsistent experience of politics in Bangladesh. It focuses on how executive overreach, electoral manipulation, institutional politicization, the suppression of dissent and civil society, and, most notably, the Constitution of Bangladesh itself have stripped out the element of democracy. The analysis offers a grounded examination of the country's political trajectory, from its fragile democratic foundations in the first Parliament to today's established culture of control and fear. The chapter argues that unless reforms are rooted in political compromise, civic empowerment, and a renewed public mandate with citizen-oriented constitutional reforms, the ongoing crisis may deepen into irreversible democratic decay.