by Ahmad Shihab 3 December 2023
In an article, notable author and writer R Chowdhury wrote on November 11, 2023: “Election is no longer an issue in Bangladesh. Post-election is. By all indications, the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is all set to hold the next election in January 2024 under its own management, a la 2014 or 2018. The political opposition has been successfully reduced to a bunch of sitting ducks. Anyone talking about a free, fair and participatory election is considered an enemy of the (Hasina) state. The US Ambassador to Bangladesh faced threats of expulsion and death from the ruling Awami League (AL) zealots (for doing so).” (Bangladesh: It is Only Post-Election Now | South Asia Journal)
Vengeance
After coming to power in 1996, through a controversial bluff, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s first task was to hang– in other words, commit judicial murder of– the leaders who staged in 1975 the nation-saving military coup, in which her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of her family members died. The coup was widely hailed and the young military officers who successfully executed the coup were hailed as Santans Surja, Divine Children (national heroes), and honored as such by at least six successive governments.
Next in Hasina’s vindictive hit list were the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) leaders who sided with Pakistan in the War of Independence in 1971. About a dozen of them were sent to the gallows or permanently jailed on make-belief charges. Interestingly, Sheikh Mujib and Hasina collaborated with Pakistan by availing its royal treatment during the war. Any denial?
After regaining power, again through conspiratorial vote rigging, in 2009, she went on crushing the political and military opposition. She committed three major brutal killings: Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) in 2009, JeI and Hefazat-e-Islam in 2013. Killing, arresting, torturing and jailing the dissidents with dozens of charges against each, mainly of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), were the routine works of her fascist forces, aided by ruling Awami League (AL) operatives. The BNP claims that the Hasina regime killed 1500 of its leaders and workers, abducted 600—most presumed killed—100,000 thrown into crammed prisons and 5 million faced false cases since 2009.
Hasina’s latest cruel campaign commenced on the BNP and JeI on October 28, 2023 when the two and 25 other parties held grand rallies in Dhaka seeking the autocratic, vindictive and corrupt Prime Minister to step down paving the way for a non-partisan, neutral caretaker government (CTG) to administer the next election. The rallies were brutally crushed with dozens of people killed and thousands wounded. Thousands of BNP and JI leaders and activists were sent to jails or remand, the Hasina regime’s term for police/RAB torture cell. Most of them have also been clamped with dozens of false cases. Reportedly, two million keep hiding to escape arrest and torture. In many cases, relatives were picked up if the main victims were not found.
The “violent autocratic crackdown on the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP),” says Human Rights Watch, is in preparation for the elections on January 7, 2024 to keep the main opposition parties away from the polls.
Sanctions and Restrictions
Bangladesh hasn’t seen a credible election since 2001. Under Sheikh Hasina, two national elections in 2014 and 2018 and nearly six thousand local level ones were made totally farcical and one-sided to ensure an overwhelming victory for the ruling elements. The political opposition has either stayed away fearing complete rigging or been forced out from contesting.
The US led West has been consistently and forcefully urging for a free, fair and a participatory next election. Towards that objective, the US announced Visa Restrictions against election offenders; but the threat met with sarcasm and ridiculous counter comments from the ruling coterie, including the Prime Minister.
The much-touted US sanctions in 2021 against the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and a few of its top officials came to naught. The human rights violations continue unabated and the 170 million people of the country remain under the axe of the draconian Digital Security Act (DSA) which penalizes them for the slightest criticism of the high-level corruptions and serious wrongdoings of the regime and the ruling family. These punitive measures have not disturbed the slightest hairline of the authorities. Election related violence, mostly committed by the ruling forces that include the Awami League operatives, reached unprecedented heights over the past few months in defiance of the stated restrictions. The political opposition has been totally crushed. Minor and non-descript parties and elements are being coerced or lured to join the electoral farce, a one-sided game of the regime, due on January 7, 2024.
India, Hasina’s sponsor and all-weather backer, has been the partner in these crimes, and continues to be so. It advances the theory of “stability,” in exchange of democracy and human rights, for the authoritarian rule to continue in Bangladesh. It is like dispensing an old member to save the family from expenses on hospice care! Ironically, most autocrats use it as a safety valve.
Electoral Farce
Ambassador Serajul Islam thought national conscience was in the next ballot. (https://southasiajournal.net/bangladesh-nations-conscience-on-the-ballot/) by the Election Commission. What EC? What conscience? In a Mogher Mulluk, talking about these high-sounding values and seeking justice is anathema to any logic.
Journalists discovered many “ghost” cases against some BNP men who are long dead or living outside the country, says Mubashar Hasan, a Sydney based research scholar on South Asia. Hasina ordered her party men to put up dummy candidates in the doled-out constituencies with a view to fooling the world to assume that the election was inclusive, even if the main opposition parties remain absent. In the face of another “managed election” in which the ruling party is sure to win, “why does the Bangladeshi government even bother to hold an election? Questions Hasan, who also answers the question. According to Australian researcher Lee Morgenbesser, elections in authoritarian regimes provide legitimacy to their authoritarian rule. Taking a cue from the book Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, elections in Bangladesh are celebrations for the ruling “spin dictators,” not the voters.
The Coalition for Human Rights & Democracy in Bangladesh (CHRD Bangladesh) expressed deep constraints “to note the complete collapse of the institutions of democracy, human rights, and worst of all, the election integrity in Bangladesh under the governance of Sheikh Hasina.” The water level is fast reaching the nose level.
Asian Affairs Researcher Owen Lippert says “In its upcoming 2024 election Bangladesh may exit being classified as a democracy, a “Demxit,” as measured by the Swedish V-Dem’s electoral ratings. To briefly recap the main problems: First is the effective outlawing of the opposition through state security measures and judicial targeting of the BNP, and extension of a legal ban on Jamaat-e Islami.” (https://www.dhakatribune.com/332274).
Indeed, Hasina had been disqualified to attend the two US sponsored Democracy Summits two years ago, even though Nepal, Pakistan and fundamentalist Modi of India did.
Institutionalized Criminality
In an administration in which criminality has been institutionalized, a fair election is impossible. The military, police, bureaucrats, and even the judges have been empowered to benefit from the power that be. “Their illicit interest is aligned with Sheikh Hasina’s retention of power,” says Lippert.
The US, the UN, the EU and other credible democratic authorities refused to send any election observers to Bangladesh knowing it to be another farcical drama.
There is a scramble among the ruling circle and its chosen beneficiaries to join the one-sided electoral tamasha, the fanciful farce. The international community and their local embassies/offices seem resigned to a “hands off” mode. The 170 million people of the country are slipping fast down the abyss of despair and suffering, groaning under the grinding of Hasina’s repressive steamrollers. The people have never before faced such a hapless and helpless situation. The world seems to have abandoned them.
Writer is human rights activists and has a few publications to his credit.
[1] Borrowing a line from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet