by M. Serajul Islam 21 October 2023
THE Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir has categorically stated that the party would not go for dialogues with the ruling party unless it is on the issue of holding the next general election under a caretaker government. The US pre-election monitoring team’s report has, meanwhile, flagged that the environment is not conducive to a free, fair and peaceful election. The European Union has also expressed the same view.
The ruling party, nevertheless, wants to hold the election under the constitutional amendment, the 15th amendment, it made in 2011 as if it is divinely ordained. It paid the scantest respect to the constitution when it came to its interests. In January 1975, it changed the 1972 constitution in a matter of minutes to adopt in a blatantly majoritarian way the fourth or the BAKSAL amendment that transformed the constitution from a parliamentary democracy into a one-party dictatorship contrary to the reasons for which millions gave their lives in 1971.
The Awami League again cared two hoots for the constitution during the BNP’s 1991–96 tenure. It took to the streets with a movement that brought the country to a standstill with violence and 173 days of general strike to force the Bangladesh Nationalist Party to amend the constitution and make the caretaker government the election-time government in place of the constitutionally mandated election under the party in power. The Commonwealth secretary general Sir Shridhat Ramphal sent Sir Ninian Stephen, Australia’s retired governor general, to Bangladesh to break the deadlock. He spent two months in Dhaka and failed.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party won the February 1996 election; the Awami League, Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jatiya Party abstained. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party used its 278-seat majority in the parliament to adopt the Awami League’s demand for the caretaker government that the latter wanted to be in the constitution ‘forever’. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party lost the election, the first under the caretaker government that all acclaimed as free and fair, and paved the way for the Awami League to come to power after 26 years. The Awami League’s majority was not enough for it to interfere with the constitution in its 1996–2001 term. It lost power to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in 2001 but regained it in the 2008 election with the two-thirds majority and, immediately, saw the opportunity to amend the constitution to reinstate its BAKSAL or one-party vision.
The Awami League this time interfered with the constitution’s principle of the separation of powers as well to, first, annul the 13th amendment for which it had carried out its 1991–96 movement and, second, to revert to the constitutional provision of the general election under the party in power. It is, therefore, unbelievable that it is the Awami League that is now arguing that it cannot, in denial of its past, accept the BNP’s demand for election under the caretaker government system which is now also the demand of all opposition parties outside its own because it cannot violate the sanctity of the constitution.
The Awami League’s use of the constitution to deny the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s demand for the caretaker government is, therefore, a lame one. It underlines that it believes in the constitution only as long as it serves its interests. The way the Awami League adopted the 15th amendment not only underlined its one-way respect for the constitution but also that the Awami League did not even bother about such a fundamental principle of the constitution — the separation of powers among the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. It used the Supreme Court to, first, annul the 13th amendment that the court had declared as constitutional and legal in 2005. The Awami League then used executive powers to overrule the Supreme Court’s judgement of two elections — the 2014 and 2018 — under the caretaker government, deleting the caretaker government system altogether from the constitution.
The AL regime, thus, violated the sanctity of the constitution in the past for serving its interests several times, unilaterally as well as through violent agitation. Its insistence that it will not even discuss with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party reinstating the caretaker government system in the constitution is, therefore, not tenable. It is not reasonable either. The 15th amendment gave the country the 2014 and the 2018 elections, shaming forever the electoral history. In 2014, there was no election to 154 of the 300 seats. The 2018 election is now better known as the midnight election.
The Awami League has, meanwhile, made the 15th amendment is holy grail in a general election by politicising the Election Commission, the civil bureaucracy and the law enforcement agencies. The amendment has, thus, become the Awami League’s Achilles’ heel proof guarantee in a general election in which it cannot lose an election.
The European Union has, meanwhile, studied the existing situation for holding a free, fair and participatory election in Bangladesh through its delegations from Brussels. It reached an unequivocal decision that the conditions for holding such an election do not exist in Bangladesh. The European Union has, thus, categorically stated that it would not send any election monitoring team, clearly flagging that it does not believe that the AL regime would be able to hold a free, fair and participatory election the way politics is at present deadlocked between the AL regime and the BNP-led opposition.
The United States is more deeply focused on the need to hold Bangladesh’s next general election in a manner that would be considered free, fair and peaceful. Washington has not focused on any country in recent times in the manner it has on the AL regime to give the people of Bangladesh their inalienable right to vote in a free and fair election to choose their next government without fear or favour. It has sent several high-level delegations as well as imposed sanctions and visa restrictions to encourage the AL regime in this context.
Afreen Akhtar, the deputy assistant secretary for South Asia in the US department of state, is now in Dhaka, pursuing the objectives Washington has been seeking in its bilateral relations with Bangladesh since the Biden administration came to power in January 2021. These are democracy, human rights and a free and fair election. The AL regime has been ambivalent, intentionally to US objectives in its bilateral relations with Bangladesh. It has assured Washington that it, too, wants to hold a free, fair and peaceful election.
The Awami League is unfortunately in denial of the futility of making promises it has no intention of keeping when interacting with the United States and the European Union. It simply cannot make promises to these great powers and leave them at that. There is, nevertheless, a time element that is fast running out for all the stakeholders, including the United States. The latter’s latest communication to the AL regime to fulfil the US pre-election team’s long report, particularly its five-point agenda, was all very well-intentioned.
If fulfilled, these five points will serve democracy, human rights and free and fair elections in Bangladesh. Nevertheless, with the general election hanging over Bangladesh like Damocles’ sword and knocking on the door, the United States and its allies need to support the caretaker government system as the panacea for saving Bangladesh from a great catastrophe. If all and sundry cares to look, it is the Awami League and its zero-sum politics to remain in power as long as it wants by amending the constitution to serve its interests that have created the ground for the caretaker government system as the panacea for a free, fair and peaceful general election.
M Serajul Islam is a former career ambassador.
The article was published in the New Age