PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF BANGLADESH

• Official name: Gana Prajatantri Bangladesh (People's Republic of Bangladesh)
• Location: South Asia
• International organisations: Commonwealth of Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Organisation of Islamic Conference, United Nations, World Trade Organisation.
• Borders: Burma, India
• Coastline: Bay of Bengal
• Land area: 144,000 Km2
• Population: 162,200,000
• Annual GDP (PPP) per capita: US$1,600 (2009 CIA estimate). World ranking: 161
• Ethnicity: Virtually the entire population is Bengali.
• Languages: Bengali is the official language and universally spoken.
• Religion: Sunni Muslim 83%, Hindu 16%, other 1%
• Form of government: Parliamentary democratic republic. Bangladesh is divided into six divisions.
• Capital: Dhaka
• Constitution: The Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh came into effect 4 November 1972. It was suspended 1982-86.
• Head of state: The President, elected by the National Assembly for a five-year term. The President's duties are largely ceremonial. The present incumbent, Zillur Rahman, took office on 12 February 2009.
• Head of government: The Prime Minister, appointed by the President, is usually the leader of the largest party in the National Assembly and accountable to it.
• Legislature: The Jatiya Samsada (National Parliament) is a unicameral legislature, with 300 members elected for five-year terms in single-member constituencies.
• Electoral authority: The Bangladesh Election Commission administers national elections.
• Freedom House 2009 rating: Political Rights 4, Civil Liberties 4

Political history

Bangladesh was first part of British India (when it was known as East Bengal) and then from 1947 was the province of East Pakistan. In 1971 following the fall of the Pakistani military regime free elections were held and the secessionist party of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman swept the eastern province. This provoked a civil war which ended with military intervention by India.

Since independence Bangladesh, the world's poorest large country, has been plagued by instability. Rahman was assassinated during a military coup in 1975 and there was a second coup in 1982. Constitutional government was restored in 1991, but Bangladeshi politics have been bedevilled by the intense hostility between Sheikh Hasina Rahman, the daughter of Mujibur Rahman and leader of the the Bangladesh Awami League (BAL), and Begum Khalida Zia, widow of Zia ur Rahman, military ruler from 1977 to 1981, and leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The antipathy between these two dynastic party leaders is legendary, and neither has been prepared to accept the results of elections when they lose.

In 2006 the army deposed Khalida Zia and appointed a caretaker government to root out corruption and organise new elections. These took place in December 2008 and resulted in a landslide win for the BAL and its allies. The BAL is in theory a socialist party but now standing mainly for family tradition. The BNP is more conservative and more inclined to appease Islamist sentiment. The islamist Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh is allied with the BNP but is not a major force.

Freedom House's 2009 report on Bangladesh says: "Bangladesh is an electoral democracy. It regained that status through the December 2008 elections, which were judged to be free and fair by European Union observers and other groups. The balloting was praised for a high degree of transparency and professionalism, and low levels of fraud and violence." But many chronic problems remain. "Endemic corruption and criminality, weak rule of law, limited bureaucratic transparency, and political polarization have traditionally undermined government accountability. Boycotts by both major parties while in opposition have regularly crippled the legislative process, and Parliament effectively ceased to function for much of its last term. The two parties have also maintained links to criminal networks... Bangladesh was ranked 147 out of 180 countries surveyed by Transparency International (TI) in its 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index."

Updated December 2009