Bangladeshi parties, still gutsy, encounter a heightened existential fear––the disquiet of a deep institutional crisis for them, and the nation, at large. And yet, parties are strategic to the country’s liberal democratic future. Since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (Hasina) lost power to the unprecedented civil unrest on August 5, 2024, and Nobel Laureate Dr. Mohammad Yunus-led Interim Regime took over, the prominent parties and their leaders have been uncertain about the yet-to-be fully envisioned fulcrums of power in the future. The traditional political actors found themselves between a post-revolt depoliticization, on the one hand, and the steering calls for a rejuvenation of politics with younger leadership, on the other. The new students-maneuvered National Citizen Party (Jatiya Nagarik Party/NCP) epitomized the anti-elitist thunder, resonated since Hasina’s autocracy tumbled last August. Headed by Nahid Islam, the convenor of the new group, the NCP is a collection of the ten top leaders, who led the earlier Anti-Discrimination Student Movement that wrecked the Hasina rule.
The contentious politics, anyhow, did not escape the Army Chief General W. Zaman’s recent speech, a stern message that unless people acted together, the country’s sovereignty could be at risk. Three battle-ground questions that braided the parties since Hasina’s plunge were: (a) a firm election date, (b) the festering disputes over the timing of political reforms (Sanskar) and (c) the bombshell announcement in support of a student-directed party with revolutionary aspirations nurtured in the wake of last year’s anti-Hasina upheaval. A “politics of rage” and a cacophony of distrusts still rattle politics without a closure in sight. Not surprisingly, the mainstream parties, especially the BNP—are impatient to regain power in the backdrop of a long hiatus of despotic rule, three rigged elections in a row and a growing skepticism regarding landmark parties and their classic mentors. The recurrent violence, and reprisals, especially the February destructions conducted at Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s (Mujib) old house in Dhaka (Road 32 at Dhanmondi) and other AL leaders’ properties in different districts scared Bangladeshis about a peaceful transition from autocracy to democracy.
BNP does not want any untested incursion into their hopes to win a majority in the next poll. But now the NCP, an unfamiliar competitor, has jolted the country’s political calculus. Next election will not be easy for the BNP; Jamaat-i-Islami and the smaller parties would prefer the major reforms first and then go for a legislative election. It would give them more time to organize themselves. To the foremost partisan players, the freshly launched student-led party might threaten their institutional survival and, surely, it is a step into political uncertainty.
An earlier conspiracy for “minus two” —implying the political elimination of the AL chief Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia (Khaleda), the BNP leader is still alive in public memory. Hunkered down, the AL is now at its lowest stratum of public estimation. The UN Human Rights Report recently found Hasina and her accomplices solely responsible for brutal killings and merciless torture through the July-August agitation. Hasina faces both international and domestic prosecutions for those allegations during her long term in office. Activists in the Students Against Discrimination and their associate Nagarik Committee wanted AL and its allies to stay out of politics until they confront the charges for hideous crimes during their stretch in power. Whatever blames fall on Hasina’s now-defunct repressive regime, also quickly sinks on AL, her party.
And BNP, edging towards election, is yet to regain its full steam, according to assorted observers. So, the interim authority and the student leaders may dare to exclude both BNP and AL from politics through the new NCP—this is the anxiety that runs through both the BNP and AL leaders’ minds. Whispers about the Anti-Discrimination body’s earlier calls for “a new political settlement” and their “anti-hegemonic voices” are amongst the new discourses of Bangladesh politics. With an acceptable number of seats in the next election, the inchoate NCP may coalesce with other parties keeping BNP in despair. Those political estimates polarize Bangladeshi party politics now.
The anti-elite populism is yet to realize that politics eventually yields under the “iron law of oligarchy” that never dies! Both BNP and AL, under their dynastic elites, face the populist negativity towards dynastic sway in parties. Virtually, all the parties—from the toppled AL to the sidelined Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the nearly-delegitimized Jamaat-I-Islam and a host of smaller groups could not fly above their respective institutional failings in the past! Striving reformists now encounter burdens of their veiled assumptions, distortions, and denial of the mainstream opposition parties’ earlier sacrifices for over a decade. BNP leaders reject the allegations of “paralysis and stagnation” against them—the victims under Hasina’s bullying. A senior leader of the party recently warned that elections should not wait for the political reforms hoisted by the interim regime and the new party’s leaders. Whatever reformist agenda Dr. Yunus and his advisors might draw, the political parties will eventually go their way—for their partisan interests, paying least attention to the bids for institutional changes.
Opponents of the NCP, however, warned against any blessings of the Interim Regime for the newly propelled political party. The politicians worry about a lengthy stint of non-political caretaker rulers without an electoral mandate. The Pakistani military rulers downgraded the politicians —it also happened for a while in Bangladesh following the 1975 coups and countercoups. But now the courageous bunch of student leaders who banished a well-entrenched tyrant may overturn the country’s familiar equilibrium of power— a nightmare for the mainstream parties! The collapse of a hegemonic party does not necessarily guarantee the rise of sound parties. East Pakistan Muslim League (EPML), the dominant party almost disappeared after the 1954 election. But the ascending United Front soon warped under the thrall of diverse factional leaders. And eventually, Ayub’s depoliticization (1958-69) became a disaster—Pakistan’s national integration fell apart. Did General Waker-uz-Zaman’s strident remark echo such fears?
Anti-Hasina uprising in Bangladesh and the White conservative men’s frustrations against the traditional institutions and the long-standing political leaders in North America and Europe are, however, not identical. Further to their plan, the NCP pioneers have also offered a new “Chetona” —a national inspiration and an identity comprehension, so long monopolized by AL and the Mujib family. Is the national identity trajectory shifting more towards last year’s anti-Hasina revolt? An open-ended debate now, the ideological contest will fuel both inter-party and intra-party polarization.
The 1954-58 parties in East Pakistan depended on the students to topple incumbent regimes at various times. But then people were still aware of the mainstream leaders’ presence in the movements— the protesting students worked more as the proxy on behalf of the larger parties. They also claimed remarkable success in the anti-Ayub campaigns, the AL victory in the 1970 election and the 1971 independence movement. The student protestors, the major opposition parties and their top leaders mutually backed each other—the locus of power did not seriously lose its balance.
Historically, Bangladeshi parties are still in their “decades of instability,” but they are nevertheless buoyant. Circumvention, repression, deaths by hanging and the worst variety of relegating could not exterminate BNP or Jamaat over a decade. Throughout the brutal years, they held out better than Samuel Huntington’s gloomy predictions on institutional future. We are not yet certain that the National Citizen Party (NCP) will bring consequential changes for Bangladeshi politics. We are not yet sure that the NCP would be just another King’s Party. Voters have not yet spoken on this phenomenon!