Freedom of expression during each prime minister's tenure

Every prime minister since 1991, ranked by how the freedom of expression changed from their first day in office. Politare shows what happened during a tenure; it does not claim the office-holder caused it.

#	Prime minister	In office	Total	Per year	Chart
1	Khaleda Zia	20 Mar 1991 – 30 Mar 1996 from 1991	+3.3 points 1991 → 1995	+0.8 points/yr
2	Sheikh Hasina	23 Jun 1996 – 15 Jul 2001	−2.1 points 1995 → 2001	−0.3 points/yr
3	Khaleda Zia	10 Oct 2001 – 29 Oct 2006	−4.2 points 2001 → 2006	−0.8 points/yr
4	Sheikh Hasina	6 Jan 2009 – 8 Aug 2024	−15.0 points 2008 → 2024	−0.9 points/yr

Sorted by total, highest first. Every row is indexed to the last count complete before the first day in office ("from" marks a start that had to move because that count had no data, or because the period cut it); Levels are per cent changes, rates are differences in points; "per year" compounds levels and divides rates. Tenures with under 12 months, or under three observations, are left out. points, 0 to 100, V-Dem's 0 to 1 index times 100 · V-Dem Institute, V-Dem dataset v16 (v2x_freexp_altinf): the freedom of expression and alternative sources of information index, the press, academic and private speech and the media's independence, as V-Dem's country experts rate them, with V-Dem's confidence interval; the 0 to 1 index times 100 · Bangladesh data · as of Sep 2026.