On April 9, Bangladeshi security forces broke down the doors of the home of model Meghna Alam in Dhaka to take her into custody. A Facebook Live broadcast of her arrest forced the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government to acknowledge her detention over 24 hours later. The arrest had violated the country’s laws, AKM Wahiduzzaman writes for the Diplomat.

After a month of preventive detention, when she was released, Meghna claimed in a video interview with Sweden-based Netra News that her arrest was orchestrated by Yunus’s special assistant Khoda Bakhs Chowdhury.

Two days later, she requested Tasneem Khalil, editor of Netra News, to remove the video from social media due to security concerns. Meghna is among hundreds of victims of the crackdown on freedom of speech initiated by the Yunus-led government.

Disciplinary actions have been taken against public officials simply for commenting on a social media post by Sarjis Alam, the leader of the newly formed student-led National Citizen Party (NCP). Even more troubling, in the last week of May, a female teacher was transferred for writing an article that supported women’s equal property rights — rights that were proposed by the Women’s Affairs Reform Commission established by the Yunus government.

While supporters of Yunus continue to project him as the sole leader to head the so-called efforts to reform Bangladeshi institutions to “prevent the rise of fascism” in the future by upholding the values of liberal democracy, recent incidents illustrate that under Yunus’ leadership, the interim government is doing quite the opposite, according to the Asia-Pacific current affairs magazine.

This raises questions about the sincerity of the interim government’s commitment to reforms and the future democratic transition necessary to sustain them. Are these reforms genuinely intended to create positive change, or are they merely a strategy to buy time for the political parties favored by the government to organize themselves?

It has been about nine months since Yunus assumed the role of chief adviser of the interim government after Sheikh Hasina, the increasingly authoritarian and brutal dictator of Bangladesh, fled to India in the wake of a mass uprising. This uprising resulted from a series of protests that began with a call to end discrimination in government jobs. In its final days, the protests snowballed into calls for Hasina’s ouster from power.

The interim government’s main agenda has focused on reforming key institutions to ensure a discrimination-free Bangladesh and to prevent the emergence of any future authoritarian regime, similar to the one led by Hasina. Yet, as of now, little progress has been made in building a consensus among all stakeholders and providing a roadmap for reforms and future democratic transition. Meanwhile, the government continues to persecute the dissenters.

A major obstacle to uniting stakeholders appears to be the interim government’s bias towards the reform ideas promoted by the newly formed NCP, often disregarding the suggestions of other prominent political actors.

The root of the problem began when the reform commissions were constituted. Many members of the student-led NCP joined the key reform commissions as ‘student representatives’ and had a direct say in drafting the reform proposals. In contrast, other major parties only had the opportunity to submit their ideas, which were largely ignored.

The NCP, which is only three months old and has fewer than a dozen committees nationwide, has been observed as having direct and privileged access to the chief adviser and other advisers. This access has enabled the NCP to influence and even shape the policies of the interim government, while other parties struggle to articulate their legitimate demands.

A notable example of this was the almost overnight banning of the political activity of the Awami League (AL) without maintaining any legal procedure, which is accused of committing crimes against humanity. A day before this government declaration, the NCP, backed by Islamists and jihadi ideologues, blocked a key intersection of the city to force the government to ban the AL, without any broader consultation with other political parties, though Yunus, on several occasions, claimed that his government would not unilaterally ban the AL.

Around the same time, a court declared a BNP leader the mayor of South Dhaka. In response, the government pushed back, prompting protests from the leader’s supporters who blocked the streets. The chief adviser expressed disappointment during a meeting with other advisers regarding the situation.

Additionally, when the BNP and other parties pressed him for a roadmap for the upcoming election, he refused to provide one and criticized the BNP for attempting to lead efforts toward a democratic transition through the election process.

The visibly discriminatory treatment of the demands of different political groups and those from the NCP have increased the trust deficit between the major political parties and the government. Nurul Haq Nur, a student leader who now leads Gono Odhikar Parishad, told a newspaper that the Yunus-led government is not sharing any roadmap because it wants to help a new party, the NCP, to organize. He alleged that the NCP has been receiving patronage from the government. Some political analysts also suggest that Yunus and his interim government are quietly backing and perhaps guiding the student-led political party from behind the scenes.

Yunus and his government need to understand why Bangladesh requires a non-partisan and neutral caretaker or interim government to organize credible elections. Unlike many countries where incumbents can conduct fair polls, Bangladeshi leaders often prioritize their party interests, manipulating the electoral process to their advantage since they cannot look beyond their parties’ interests.

Therefore, election-time non-partisan technocrat governments comprising advisers without party affiliations have been crucial for ensuring fair elections in Bangladesh.

If the interim government, or at least some of its advisers, loses credibility and neutrality by treating different parties differently and patronizing any “King’s Party,” it would lead Bangladesh to a new crisis that would not only harm the future democratic transition, but also any efforts to reform the institutions.