Who Runs Things During an Election

In November 2025, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh restored the practice of caretaker governments. In most countries with parliamentary systems, when an election is about to take place, a caretaker government runs things until the election is over. Learn more about caretaker governments—who staffs them, what are their main responsibilities, and what are they supposed to avoid doing?—and then discuss with your team: should caretaker governments be used in more countries and for longer periods of time? Have any caretaker governments refused to leave office when their time was up?

Key concepts

Institutional Restraint: The principle that holding power and USING it are separate — a body that could act but deliberately doesn't, because the legitimacy to make big decisions has expired. It's the same logic behind a lame-duck convention or a judge recusing themselves.

Every work — at a glance

Bangladesh 2007 (case)

an interim administration meant to run a 90-day election instead presided over a military-backed state of emergency and postponed the vote for roughly two years — the overstay that got the system scrapped in 2011 and made its 2025 restoration so fraught.
Caretaker Government (case)

the clearest formalized example: the government publishes explicit written rules on what it may and may not do once an election is called.

What to know

01
What are a caretaker's responsibilities — and limits? Keep the state's day-to-day machinery running (services, emergencies, existing obligations) while refusing anything that binds the next government: no major new policy, no big appointments, and consult the opposition on anything significant.
02
Who staffs it? The models differ sharply: in Westminster systems (Australia, the UK) the sitting ministers simply stay on in a restrained mode, while Bangladesh's old system handed power to a neutral, non-party figure — a retired chief justice — so that no incumbent could tilt the vote in its own favour.
03
Have any refused to leave? Yes — Bangladesh’s own 2007 caretaker administration overstayed its 90-day mandate by about two years under a military-backed emergency, jailing both party leaders before it finally held the vote. That is exactly why the model is genuinely double-edged rather than a guaranteed safeguard.

Across subjects

History shows both faces of this moment. Rome's Cincinnatus took absolute power to save the republic and surrendered it within days — the caretaker ideal made flesh. Far more rulers, from Julius Caesar to modern strongmen who 'postpone' a vote, treated the handover as a foothold to keep power.

Theme connection

At an election a government has reached the end of its road, and the convention answers who drives while we switch drivers. Does that restraint protect democracy from a defeated government entrenching itself — or leave a country rudderless exactly when a crisis won't wait for the new lot to be sworn in?

Practice

Check what you've read

Pick the best answer — you'll see why each option is right or wrong.

Question 1 of 2

HISA caretaker government that steps aside after an election is MOST like the Roman Cincinnatus, who —

Question 2 of 2

SOCThree days before a national election, a caretaker government is LEAST LIKELY to —