Conclusion
The historically grounded analysis of Bangladesh’s constitutional discourse above suggests that power-personalisation tendency, radicalisation and polarisation of the country’s political system have direct consequences on its constitutional consolidation and institutionalisation.
Actions of Bangladesh’s competing political parties, particularly their patriarchic leaders, since the independence suggest that they never gave up their desire for a perpetual grasp on power and total elimination of their opponents.[1471] It encouraged suppressing what Olsen calls a ‘Democratic Instrumental Vision’[1472] in institution-building. Bangladesh’s Constitution-framers were largely successful in setting up a liberal and workable constitutional order. However, the post-independence political leaders, including the framers themselves, and the subsequent reformers made and unmade the Constitution in ways that best served their immediate political conveniences rather than the long-term institutional interest of the country.[1473]As Muzaffar and Seidher put it, democratic and authoritarian actors differ in their attitudes towards uncertainty. While the former seeks to reduce the uncertainty of institutions, the latter works to reduce the uncertainty of outcomes.[1474] For the five decades of Bangladesh’s existence, political parties and their patriarchal leaders worked to reduce the uncertainty of their retaining power. Different makeshift solutions and proposals inspired by temporal impulses have been suggested and implemented. In contrast, the conversation on the political party system, intraparty democracy, professional civil service, independent Election Commission or other integrity institutions has been consciously avoided. In the process, the country has become derailed from its original constitutional ideals, dismantled its key constitutional institutions and reduced the Constitution to ‘a fond memory’[1475] of the past. Therefore, Bangladesh could qualify as a textbook example of how to make a good constitutional order and then unmake it.