THE president of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, irrespective of party affiliation, or even a non-partisan one, remains prisoner of a constitutional provision that does not allow him/her to function under the dictates of his conscience, for he is bound to ‘act’, as Article 48(C) clearly states, only ‘in accordance with the advice of the Prime Minister,’ except for appointing the prime minister and the chief justice.

The president, who is ‘elected by the members of Parliament,’ that is, elected by the elected representatives of the people, and duly recognised as the ‘Head of State’ who ‘takes precedence over all other persons in the State,’ practically does not have a couple of constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights that all other citizens, under Article 39, are entitled to: the ‘freedom of thought and conscience’ as well the ‘freedom of speech and expression.’ The idea of depriving a president of such fundamental human rights, and that too in a democratic dispensation, is obviously an absurd one and, therefore, needs to be done away with.

This kind of indignity was imposed on the country’s presidency in 1991, when, in the wake of the overthrow of the autocratic government of General HM Ershad in the face of a mass uprising in 1990, the country constitutionally switched over, under the general consensus among all the political parties, to parliamentary system of governance from the presidential one. While doing so, the political parties concerned refused to strike any democratic balance between the powers of two state institutions — presidency and premiership. Instead, they simply replaced the president with the prime minister to ‘exercise the executive power of the Republic,’ and, thus, changing the ‘Presidential form’ of government to a ‘Prime Ministerial’ one. Under that constitutional dispensation, the president was left with, what a former president, Justice Shabuddin Ahmad, had once grudgingly said, ‘the President has nothing to do except doing mazar ziyarat,’ meaning paying respect to the politically important shrines like those of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman. Practically, the president even did not have the freedom to choose, as was the case of president Professor Badruddoza Chowdhury, as to which particular shrine he was to pay respect to.

The degree of vulgarity involved with the existing presidential status has been clearly exposed to the public this time, with president Mohammed Shahubuddin, better known as Chuppu, making diametrically opposite political-ideological observations about two opposing political quarters, obviously on the ‘advice of the two different prime ministers’ under two different regimes.

The Awami League regime headed by the erstwhile prime minister Sheikh Hasina appointed Shahubuddin Chuppu, a former district-level leader of the League’s student front, to be the president of the country in April 2023 for a tenure of five years. Then, under a constitutional provision, he ‘delivered’ in the inaugural session of the parliament the presidential speech, obviously drafted by the executive authorities of the state and approved by prime minister Sheikh Hasina, in 2024, in which he described Hasina as a ‘great democrat’ making ‘great patriotic contributions’ to the development of the country and slated Hasina’s political counterpart, Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s late chairperson Khaleda Zia, for her ‘anti-people activities.’

Meanwhile, the League regime was ousted from power and Hasina and her political associates fled the country, in the face of vigorous student-mass uprising in July-August 2024. The victorious forces of the uprising, politically radical but not revolutionary, resolving not to remove Chuppu from the presidency, understandably, make certain legal changes look constitutionally legitimate. Under the circumstance, a new parliament was elected in February this year, with the late Khaleda’s BNP winning the majority seats, and went into its inaugural session in March this year. Shahubuddin Chuppu, still the president, delivered his speech, again drafted by the executive authorities and approved by the new prime minister, this time the late Khaleda’s son Tarique Rahman, and now described Khaleda Zia to be a ‘great patriot who sacrificed her life for democracy.’ Besides, the president, who was all praise for Hasina only the other day, this time narrated her to be an infamous ‘fascist’! This ‘double standard’ definitely appears to be quite funny, even perversive, but the phenomenon cannot be explained only by the lack of political integrity of president Chuppu, for it was under constitutional obligation that a president is to read out a speech, in his name, without having any say of his own. Any president working under two politically opposing regime is, under the existing constitutional provisions concerned, is bound to do so. This is degrading for the presidency of any country.

While a small section of the country’s democratically oriented intelligentsia had stressed upon the political importance of ensuring checks and balances between the powers and authorities of the president and the prime minster, the latest people’s uprising that overthrew the authoritarian government of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 brought forth the democratic importance of bringing in quite a set of constitutional reforms.

The post-uprising constitutional reforms commission has proposed a reforms package, including enhancing the power authorities of the president, vis-à-vis those of the prime minister, and the proposed package has already been approved by the people through a referendum, a little manipulated and, therefore, faulty though, in February this year. There are, however, visible differences of opinion between the treasury bench and the opposition of the newly elected parliament over carrying out the full reforms package but are reasons to believe that the parties concerned would eventually be able to reach a consensus, at least under the political pressure of the people’s fresh political memory of the bloodied mass uprising, on democratising certain authoritarian provisions of the constitution. Of them, this article proposes that the question of unshackling the presidency should get a high priority, for it would not only help remove the unconstitutional shackle of the president that deprives him of acting in accordance with his ‘conscience’ and exercise his democratic right to the ‘freedom of expression,’ but also inspire the individuals with some sense of dignity to take up the presidential responsibility. Under the present condition, no self-respecting citizen is supposed to accept the top position of the state.

The president, who is considered a symbol of national unity, needs to be person with sense of dignity as well as capable of advising, as and when needed, both the leader of the parliament and the leader of the opposition in the parliament. Besides, the parliamentary tradition of addressing the inaugural session of the House every year should remain in place while the president should deliver the speech, drafted by a group of non-partisan experts, and edited and endorsed by the president, which would present an objective assessment of the previous year’s performances of both the governing party and the opposition and put forward some suggestions for the government to consider. The parliament members would then freely discuss and debate the contents of the presidential speech and collectively find out a sense of direction for the next one year. The change of constitutional provision concerned to this effect, we believe, is the need of the hour.

Nurul Kabir is editor of New Age.