Rise of Ershad After the
assassination of
Ziaur Rahman on 30 May 1981, Vice-President
Justice Abdus Sattar took over as the acting president of
Bangladesh.
Bangladesh Army Chief of Staff,
Lieutenant General H. M. Ershad extended his support to the acting President Sattar. However, General Ershad expressed in an interview with
The Guardian that the military should have a defined role within the
government and civil administration, a viewpoint that was rejected by the President. Infuriated General Ershad imposed a martial law on 24 March 1982 and declared himself as the Chief Martial Law Administrator. He replaced Justice Sattar with Justice
A. F. M. Ahsanuddin Chowdhury as the President. On 11 April 1983, Hussain Muhammad Ershad suspended the constitution and declared himself as the President of Bangladesh.
Political opposition The first major opposition Ershad had to deal with was the
Anti-Majid Khan Education Policy movement in 1983. Amid state of emergency, hundreds of thousands of students gathered to protest the
proposed majid khan education policy that was aimed at making
Arabic a mandatory language to learn in primary level education. In the two days of street battles (14 and 15 February 1983) in the
University of Dhaka, at least five died who were identified as Dipali Saha, Kanchan, Joynal, Mozammel and Zafar, since then 14 February is observed as
Anti-autocracy Day in Bangladesh. Soon after the movement,
Awami League forged an alliance with 15 other parties and
BNP forged an alliance with 7 other parties to resist the Ershad regime and launch a movement from September 1983. The movement was later slowed down due to the split in both parties and alliances.
General election 1986 In March 1986, Ershad declared that a general election would be held on 7 May. BNP led 7-Party Alliance decided to boycott the election and declared nationwide strikes to foil the election. 15-Party Alliance led by Awami League initially declared to boycott the election on 17 March 1986. On 19 March at the Laldighi field of
Chittagong,
Sheikh Hasina declared: But later, on the night of 21 March 1986, Sheikh Hasina declared that the Awami League and 15-party alliance will join the election. Following the decision, five leftist parties including
Workers' Party,
Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal of the 15-party alliance withdrew themselves from the alliance and decided to boycott the election with 7-party alliance. The participation of Awami League and its seven allies in the election gave a path for next couple of years to the Ershad regime that had already created a new political party
Jatiya Party and weakened the anti-Ershad movement in the country.
Revival of the movement After the defeat in 1986 general elections, Awami League led 8-party alliance took a streets once again that bolstered the movement launched by BNP led 7-party alliance and Leftist 5-party alliance in 1987. The leaders of two major alliances of the time Begum Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina decided to move for a unified movement against the Ershad regime after a meeting on 28 October 1987 at Mahakhali of the capital. The movement reached a new peak in 1987 after the death of
Nur Hossain who died during a police firing on a
Jubo League rally. BNP, Awami League and all other parties started nationwide agitation in response to the police excesses. But eventually the movement in 1987–88 did not see much success due to the repressive measures from the government like the frequent house arrests of
Begum Khaleda Zia and
Sheikh Hasina. ==Students' movement==