By The South Asia Journal Geopolitical Analyst
Scene of a Recent Opposition Rally in Bangladesh
Every day the accumulated voices of resentment against the misrule and abuse of the ruling party, the Bangladesh Awami League (BAL), are rising and intensifying, both within and abroad.
While the opposition rallies, which until recently used to be tackled by the government with unimaginable violence, both overt and covert, that made such mass gatherings a rarity, have suddenly become quite visible and forceful.
Social media has also joined the cabal, in posting dissent and protesting the government’s bad behaviour where even a single tweet sounds loud enough to rise above the cacophony of the multitude and attract the attention of the millions.
Nervous times – the shifting geopolitics
These are nervous times for the government. So, what has changed for a government that happily and openly employed thuggery and abuse to ‘win’ elections and rule the country for the last decade and a half?
To get the answer, we need to go back a bit. We need to understand the political economy of the rise of Hasina, especially the forces that helped to bring her and the BAL into government and to remain in power, and the purpose for which they backed her and her party.
Furthermore, it is also important to figure out why despite the BAL government’s horrendous human rights records, abuse, and brazen tempering of elections that consistently skewed the outcomes in their favour, the so-called international community (read this as US/Zionist/Indian hegemon), the self-declared champions of democracy kept on endorsing and backing a government that is anything but democratic?
Firstly, capitalising on West’s/India’s Islamophobia, Hasina led BAL to convince the so-called international community that they are the only anti-Islamist secular political entity in Bangladesh. In this Muslim-majority country, they argued that Islamic extremism was rising. Therefore, their political agenda is the same as that of the West’s ‘war on terror – an anti-Islamist crusade.
Secondly, BAL convinced its Islamophobic Western allies to ensure that the Islamophobic agenda in Bangladesh must ensure that the electoral governance is tailored in a way that guarantees BAL’s continuation in power. The Islamophobic nexus readily accepted the idea and backed BAL’s efforts to remain in power since. In this regard, they altered an electoral governance system, the neutral Care-Taker Government (CTG) system that, till then, conducted free and fair elections in Bangladesh.
Scrapping of the CTG System
In 2009, in an election held under the military-backed CTG system, Sheikh Hasina returned to power with a two/third majority in the parliament.
Many claims with the justification that the 2009 election that brought Hasina back to power was free but not necessarily fair and that there were behind-the-scenes hands that manipulated the results to give BAL the two/third majority in the parliament, which they promptly used to scrap the CTG provision from the Constitution, the very system that brought them to power and more tellingly, the very system that BAL itself demanded and got installed in 1996, while in opposition.
Thus, with the scrapping of the CTG system in 2009, it is little wonder that the BAL has ‘won’ the subsequent elections held in 2014 and 2018 under its administrative watch. These 2014 (BNP boycotted complaining rigging) and 2018 elections were anything but fair and, on the contrary, are known for massive rigging and fraud. The international community watched these aberrations from the side as passive if not approving on-lookers.
During 2009-2022 BAL government duly rewarded its external backers by clamping down on “Islamic terrorists” and, more importantly, used the bogey of Islamophobia to repress, brutalise and suppress the opposition, especially its archrival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and its ally, the Jammat Islam, an Islamist party.
Thanks to India’s lobbying and geopolitics, the international community ignored these abuses, commended the BAL government’s “anti-terror” activities, and gave the government carte blanche to persecute, at will, the opposition.
Furthermore, the rising international demand for Bangladeshi textiles (Bangladesh is the second largest Ready-made garment producer in the world), remittances of the migrant workers, and inflow of massive Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), especially through bilateral aid boosted Bangladesh’s GDP, which also attracted international attention and intensified completion for a slice of Bangladesh’s expanding economic cake.
However, as is evident, the economic honeymoon has proved to be short-lived. Soon it also became clear that much of Bangladesh’s recent economic boom is more a bubble than real, and its geo-political as well its geoeconomics attractions, which triggered competition among certain super and regional powers which contributed to the pampering of the BAL government, has dwindled.
Shifting geopolitics
Indeed, in a situation where the war on terror has lost much of its wind and where India is proving to be a more opportunistic and not a permanent ally of the West, and in a rising multipolar world where the US, once the dominant world power, has lost much of its capacity to influence international events and in a situation where Bangladesh’s economy is experiencing numerous challenges and regressing, US has not only lost its interest in BAL but seeking alternative ways to recalibrate its international relations including those that relate to Bangladesh.
The election of Biden as the President of the US in 2021 has triggered new ideas in US foreign policy – from the outright show of arrogance of power to a raft of foreign policy overtures that stress democracy, human rights, freedom, free media, etc. are being touted as its key requirements in foreign relations.
In other words, the US government’s new foreign policy has abandoned its war-on-terror tactics and instead embraced or at least seen to be embracing idealism – democracy and human rights – as its foreign relations tool.
These shifts are disadvantaging Hasina, who made ‘fight against Islamic terror” her key political mantra, a ploy which she successfully used to destroy democracy, subdue opposition, and establish authoritarianism, ensuring that she and her party BAL, remain in power for a long time if not for life.
However, as the saying goes, ‘’man proposes, God disposes’’, this is not to be. Things have changed. Geopolitics has shifted, and so has Hasina’s luck.
Hasina’s first shock came when she was disinvited from the democracy summit hosted by President Biden on December 9-10 last year. Before the government could absorb the open diplomatic snub, there came another punitive measure when the US government announced sanctions against seven former and serving senior officials of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a special security force with wide powers, including the incumbent Inspector General of Police and the RAB’s Director General, holding them responsible for numerous crimes such as extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearance of the government’s critics and human rights campaigners.
These certainly have not been good news for the government. Yet, recently Hasina promoted the DG, RAB, under the US sanctions to the post of Inspector General of Police (IGP), the head of the police department.
At one level, Hasina’s action shows her defiant mood and outright contempt for the US action. Yet, at another, her action may also be a sign that she has now decided to rely more on her repressive institutions within than the external forces to stay in power.
However, things seem to have gotten worse lately. Led primarily by the US, most western countries are increasingly expressing their impatience with and disdain for the BAL government’s abuses and aberrations, and some are visibly avoiding direct contact with Sheikh Hasina.
For example, after speaking at a near-empty UNGA session in September this year, Sheikh Hasina spent nearly two weeks idling in a Washington DC hotel room, wasting the nation’s precious foreign exchange, hoping, in vain, to get an appointment to meet someone, anyone high-up in the Biden Administration. She returned home without meeting no one.
Recently, the US Assistant Secretary of State, Ms. Afrin Akhter, visited Bangladesh to parley with the government, opposition leaders, civil society activists, and a cross-section of people. On every occasion of her interaction with the media, she made it clear that the world will no longer ignore the extrajudicial murders, police brutality, enforced disappearance, gross human rights violations, and the muzzling of a free press in Bangladesh. She also warned that the world will not accept anything short of a free, fair, and participatory national election in the upcoming poll in 2024 in this regard, it is also important to mention while it is true that the international community has so far not explicitly asked for an” election time neutral caretaker government” their continued insistence for a free and fair election makes it imperative that nothing short of a CTG would satisfy their intended desire.
Another shock for Hasina has been a recent interview with Japan’s Ambassador to Bangladesh, HE Mr. Naoki, at a public forum where he expressed his astonishment, if not disgust, that Bangladesh may be the only country in the world where police stuff ballot papers the night before the election. Now something like this coming from a Japanese diplomat who is extra polite says a lot about the extent far BAL’s thuggery has extended to earn Japan’s public admonition. This is also quite significant because Japan happens to be one of the major donors for Bangladesh. Therefore, their skepticism of the government’s integrity and fairness does not augur well, either for the government or the country. Like most Western countries, the Japanese Ambassador also hoped the coming election would be free and fair, where all political parties participate without any barrier.
In this regard, it is also important to remember that Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to visit Japan late this month, and it is more than likely the Japanese government will duly factor in their ambassador’s views at various dialogues the leaders of the two countries will have. it may also be helpful to remember that Ambassador Ito is no Abdul Momen, Bangladesh’s loud-mouthed Foreign Minister whose mouth opens before his brain does.
Therefore, it would only do good to Hasina and her delegation to acknowledge that through his candid statement on Bangladesh’s corrupt electoral governance, the Ambassador might have served the appetiser before the main course, which will be served when Hasina visits Japan this month. Indeed, Hasina’s team, for the upcoming mission to Japan, must prepare well to answer and address some tough questions that the Japanese government will inevitably raise.
US and Japan are not the only countries that have expressed their disapproval of the Hasina government’s handling of electoral governance. The entire western world including the EU, the UK, Australia, and Canada, has also expressed similar concerns and voiced strong support for a free, fair, and transparent election in 2024 and ensure unconstrained participation of all political parties.
Interestingly, Bangladesh’s big neighbour, India, until recently a major backer of Sheikh Hasina, hasn’t quite lagged in distancing itself from her, either. During the recent visit of Sheikh Hasina to India in September 2022, which the Bangladesh government touted as a state visit, the protocol and reception extended to her didn’t commensurate with the status of a visiting head of government of a foreign country.
Furthermore, after his tenure in Dhaka, Mr. Vikram Doraiswami, the immediate past Indian High Commissioner in Bangladesh, made a categorical statement at a farewell reception that India’s friendship with Bangladesh was with its people and not with any political party.
While the message is clear that India can no more be counted as the guaranteed ally and backer of Hasina nor her party, BAL, there is nothing altruistic about India’s change of heart. India is annoyed because Hasina has courted a close partnership with China, an arch-enemy of India.
In sum, for good reasons or bad, things certainly do not look great for Hasina and BAL. Adding to her political owes are the looming global economic crisis, the years of corruption, mismanagement, squandering of public money, money laundering, and rising inequality, etc., etc. that have put the economy of Bangladesh in jeopardy. Things are dire – prices of essentials are rising; people are losing jobs, and anger is waiting to burst.
The shifting geopolitics and the change of heart among Hasina’s key foreign backers and the deepening economic crisis that have caused must resentments among the suffering millions seem to have weakened the government and, at the same time, inspired and cleared the ground for the opposition, especially the BNP to come alive and organize mass public gatherings.
A buoyant opposition and the shattered equilibrium
In recent times, BNP has successfully held massive rallies in various locations in Bangladesh. Fear of rebuke from foreign governments has restrained Hasina from overtly using law enforcement agencies to stop these rallies. Instead, her party thugs have resorted to less violent means to put barriers to the opposition gatherings, albeit somewhat unsuccessfully.
Indeed, Sheikh Hasina’s megalomaniac and draconian rule appear to be nearing its use-by date. Her use of the hoax of the Islamic card does not seem to be working anymore. She has already overplayed the card, and the west has called her bluff.
Internally, Hasina’s capacity to chest beating and bullying and intimidate the opposition seems to have dwindled significantly.
It is time that she and her colleagues see the writing on the wall and take steps to re-install the CTG system and reconstitute the Election Commission endorsed by all parties, and create grounds for a free, fair, and, most importantly, a violence-free election where all parties are allowed to engage people with their manifesto, fight the election on concrete programmes and allow people elect the party. The leaders that they trust most and those they believe would serve their interests and those of the country best.
Time is crying for change. We all know that Sheikh Hasina is a very shrewd person. However, the time may have come for her to be an intelligent person, for, as Einstein once reminded her, “the measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”