Article by Joshua Kurlantzick, Author
Last weekend, Bangladesh’s long-ruling Awami League won a significant election “victory,” taking a reported 222 seats out of a total of 298 available, according to the country’s Election Commission, which is heavily stacked with Awami League functionaries. This gives the Awami League and its increasingly autocratic leader, Sheikh Hasina, her fourth straight term in office and fifth term overall as prime minister.
Unfortunately, during Sheikh Hasina’s time in office, she cracked down more and more on opposition parties, civil society, the press, and virtually any other form of opposition. The main opposition party, the BNP, declined to participate in this election, declaring it would not be free and fair. They were right. Sheikh Hasina refused to allow a caretaker government to take over during the election period. In the past, caretaker governments allowed freer and fairer campaigning and helped prevent the ruling party from dominating the election machinery and process. Thousands, even tens of thousands of members of the BNP, are in detention, and a number have been killed. According to The Guardian, “The election has been described as a ‘sham’ designed to cement Hasina’s rule by exiled opposition leader Tarique Rahman. Rahman’s party staged a months-long protest campaign in 2023 demanding the prime minister’s resignation that saw at least eleven people killed and thousands of its supporters arrested.”
Leading democracies agreed that the election was not free and fair. The United Kingdom condemned it as unfree, and according to Reuters, a U.S. State Department spokesman said, “The United States remains concerned by the arrests of thousands of political opposition members and by reports of irregularities on elections day … The United States shares the view with other observers that these elections were not free or fair, and we regret that not all parties participated.”
Sheikh Hasina’s actions are consistent with an ongoing, longstanding trend of democratic regression in South and Southeast Asia. This trend encompasses military takeovers and non-military autocracies or hybrid states that have quashed democracy, or at least a degree of freedom, in countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, and Myanmar. Even bright spots like Thailand, which at least had an election last year, ultimately went against the popular will and ended up installing a coalition government that did not include the party that won the most votes.
There is little reason to hope that things will turn around, at least anytime soon, in the region. Democratic regression could worsen. Indonesia’s presidential elections are coming up, and Prabowo Subianto, the leading candidate, has previously suggested that he would rule as a strongman-type leader. In Cambodia, new leader Hun Manet may be more open to economic change but continues the repressive environment toward political opposition and civil society. With the United States distracted and China increasingly influential in the region, democrats face an uphill battle.