In Id speech, Yunus revives July Proclamation that was planned by students to “bury” Bangladesh’s 1972 constitution

In his Id speech delivered on Friday, the Chief Adviser to the interim government of Bangladesh, Prof. Mohammed Yunus announced that the next national election will be held in April 2026. However, he announced the country would witness the launch of the “July Proclamation”, a document that he said was “agreed upon by all parties”. The July Proclamation was earlier planned by student activists to “bury” the constitution of Bangladesh, as it is linked to the founder of Bangladesh and Awami League co-founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

“The students who led and participated in the July Uprising have announced plans to issue a July Declaration. They invited me to be part of it. I suggested that it would be more meaningful if the declaration is issued jointly — by all political leaders, civil society representatives and others. This Charter is a promise,” Mr. Yunus said in the speech, where he did not mention the name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose images were dropped from the new currency notes printed by the interim government last week.

It was reported by The Hindu that the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement, that led the uprising against then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, announced in a press conference on December 29, 2024, that they wanted to “bury” the 1972 constitution of Bangladesh and launch the “July Proclamation” in a public meeting on December 31, 2024, at the Shahid Minar of Dhaka. The students paused the plan at the last moment after the military reportedly intervened, fearing that replacing the constitution with a charter drawn from the July-August uprising would have destabilised Bangladesh further.

However, in the Id speech, Mr. Yunus indicated that the July Proclamation that was to be launched by the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement has said this time the “July Proclamation” will “include a list of reform proposals, agreed upon by all parties, aimed at building a welfare-oriented state. By signing it, the parties will pledge to implement these reforms.” He, however, did not specify the legal validity of such a charter overseen by an interim administration.

The timing of the speech drew attention as it came days after Army Chief Waker-uz-Zaman and the leadership of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) criticised the government for being slow in holding the promised election and demanded that the election must be held by December 2025. The BNP has not yet expressed its opinion on whether it would sign the July Proclamation that Mr. Yunus mentioned in his speech.

Soon after the speech, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the largest overground political party, held a meeting in the party headquarters in Gulshan neighbourhood and opposed the idea of holding elections in April 2026. However, Mr. Yunus argued that “free, transparent and peaceful election to pave the way for transfer of power” can take place only after ensuring justice for the killings of agitators during July-August 2024. “We are confident that visible progress will be made in the delivery of justice for these actions by that time,” Mr. Yunus said, indicating the verdicts in the cases related to the police action in last year’s uprising will be completed before April 2026.