Military Coup in Bangladesh 1982

Abdus Sattar, the newly elected president of Bangladesh, was an elderly man who his critics thought to be ineffective, but his greatest weakness, in the eyes of the military, was that he was a civilian. Immediately following the 1981 election, the army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad (Hossein Mohammed Ershad) pushed Sattar for a constitutional role for the military in the governance of the country. After initial resistance, Sattar, faced with the prospect of a coup, agreed to set up the National Security Council in January 1982 with the president, vice president, and prime minister representing the civilian side and the three service chiefs representing the military.

In a last attempt to limit the influence of the military, Sattar relieved a number of military officers from duty in the government. Sattar's decision to curtail military influence in the government provoked an immediate response from Ershad. On March 24, 1982, Ershad, seized control of the government in a military coup. He proclaimed martial law, made himself chief martial law administrator, and dismantled the structures of democratic government that the administration of the late president Zia had carefully built during the previous five years. Ershad suspended the Constitution, disbanded Parliament, prohibited all political activities, and deprived the president, vice president, and cabinet ministers of their offices. Because the major political forces in the country could not cooperate with each other, there was no resistance to Ershad's takeover. Three days after the coup, Supreme Court justice Abdul Fazal Muhammad Ahsanuddin Chowdhury became interim president. Ershad became chief minister of a new cabinet, and by December 1983 he had officially taken over the presidency. He declared that he expected a return to democratic rule in about two years. In fact, martial law lasted until November 1986.

References

Timelines of War, 507; Bangladesh - A Country Study.

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