Bangladesh parliament to open maiden session with speaker’s chair vacant

Dhaka: Bangladesh's new parliament is set to convene its maiden session on Thursday, with the speaker's chair remaining vacant.

Former Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury resigned in September 2024 after Sheikh Hasina's ouster, while deputy speaker Shamsul Haque was jailed, though both were meant to remain until the new parliament met.

"The parliament's (opening) sitting will start keeping the speaker's seat vacant," ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) lawmaker and Chief Whip Nurul Islam Moni told reporters on Wednesday.

Emerging from a BNP parliamentary party meeting, Moni said that verses from the Holy Quran would be recited at the session's beginning, following which the leader of the house, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, would propose a senior parliamentarian's name to chair the session.

Former Speaker Chaudhury resigned nearly four weeks after President Mohammad Shahabuddin dissolved the house following prime minister Hasina's ouster on August 5.

The Hasina-led Awami League government was replaced by an interim regime led by Yunus, which sent deputy speaker Shamsul Haque to jail.

President Shahabuddin called for the first session of the new parliament after the BNP formed a government with its chairman Rahman becoming the premier on February 17 for a five-year term -- coinciding with the parliament's tenure.

According to officials from Bangabhaban, the presidential palace, Shahabuddin would address the opening session "as demanded by the constitution", but under existing practice, he would read out a speech prepared by the government.

Meanwhile, Jamaat, on Wednesday expressed strong reservation against the president's address, calling Shahabuddin's inaugural speech "unacceptable" since he was an "accomplice of the autocrat", as he was elected to the post by the Awami League-led parliament.

Asked if the opposition would boycott the president's speech in parliament, Jamaat chief and opposition leader Shafiqur Rahman on Wednesday did not give a direct answer, saying the opposition's stance would be "visible" during the parliamentary session.

"We think the President (Shahabuddin) does not have any right to address the parliament. He is an accomplice of the autocrat," Jamaat's nayeb-e-ameer or deputy chief Abdullah Mohammad Taher told another media briefing.

The BNP won with a two-thirds majority in the February 12 general elections while Jamaat emerged as the main opposition, a position the far-right party gained for the first time since its founding in 1941.

The polls in Bangladesh took place in a changed political landscape as the interim regime disbanded Hasina's Awami League, barring it from contesting the election.

Analysts speculated the 13th parliament might witness an impasse due to widening differences between BNP and its once long-term ally Jamaat, over a referendum held simultaneously with the general elections.

The plebiscite was aimed at obligating parliament to implement within 180 days the July Charter framed by a Yunus-led commission, which comprised a series of complex reforms mainly demanding the Constitution's rewriting.

The referendum, which many jurists called unconstitutional, passed with over 60 per cent of the vote and also demanded elected members take an oath both as MPs and as members of a 'Constitution Reform Council'.

BNP lawmakers took oath as MPs, but unlike Jamaat or its ally, the student-led National Citizen Party (NCP), they underscored that the existing constitution had no provision for lawmakers to be sworn as members of the Reform Council.

BNP said only the elected parliament could decide if and how the July Charter could be incorporated, amending the constitution, a stance which deeply angered the Jamaat and NCP, mainly led by those who led the street protest toppling the Awami League government.

Meanwhile, Chief Whip Moni expressed his desire to build a vibrant and effective parliament, even though the BNP did not receive from Jamaat the names of nominees as sought by the ruling party.

Rahman on Wednesday urged BNP to take oath as members of the Constitution Reform Council, while adding that his party would not accept the deputy speaker's post in a "piecemeal manner".

"Instead, Jamaat wants opposition-entitled positions to be filled based on full implementation of the July reform proposals," he told a press conference.