by Taj Hashmi 3 January 2023
Recent events have led many to believe that the Hasina regime no longer has the moral authority to govern Bangladesh. This belief is held by a large number of Bangladeshis both within the country and abroad. Numerous foreign governments, analysts, and human rights activists also share this view and are calling for the removal of her regime, which they describe as brutal, corrupt, and illegitimate. It is time for Bangladeshis to reflect on the effectiveness of the current regime and ask why it has continued for the last fifteen years. We must understand that without the removal of the regime by any means, it will continue indefinitely, like many totalitarian regimes in the past. It’s time to delegitimise the farcical one-party elections Hasina is holding on 7th January for the eventual removal of the regime.
Although Hasina is going to win the so-called elections, yet she’s going to lose her legitimacy, both morally and legally. With a view to legitimising the “elections” – the types only held in countries like North Korea, Iran, Egypt, and Iraq during Saddam Hussein – the regime has convinced some compliant politicians to participate in the sham polls, which won’t be contested between two or more political parties. election. An analyst from Bangladesh, Ambassador Serajul Islam, has recently described the elections scheduled for January 7th as “stranger than fiction”. He has also labelled the current government as a “government of the Awami League, by the Awami League, and for the Awami League”. These observations tell us everything.
Sheikh Hasina, the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh, has attempted to portray the one-party elections as multiparty, free, fair, and competitive, in a hypocritical and absurd cover-up. However, she lacks the charisma of her father, Sheikh Mujib, and cannot boldly proclaim her regime as a one-party system, similar to BAKSAL under her late father in 1975. Autocracy is no longer acceptable to many people and countries in the East and West, unlike the Cold War years. Therefore, Hasina is desperate for Western support and a market for Bangladesh’s main exports, readymade garments. She proclaims her sham elections as “parliamentary” by nature, but her failure to sell them as democratic and legitimate at home or abroad has stripped her regime of any moral or legal credibility. This is a moral victory for the people of Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, as Hasina’s fifteen-year-long unelected regime has been exposed to the free world as autocratic, brutal, and corrupt, so have all her endeavours since she became the Prime Minister with direct Indian intervention through the military-backed compliant pro-Indian government in Bangladesh in 2008-2009. Moreover, of late, the Biden Administration, along with the UN, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, and other allies of Washington have also been very critical of the Hasina regime’s mode of governance, especially with regard to the violations of human rights, labour rights, and democratic norms and principles hindering the process of good governance and justice with absolute transparency and accountability of the government machinery.
Western countries are concerned about human and labour rights violations under the Hasina administration. The US, UN, EU, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have expressed serious concerns about the administration’s democratic credentials and election practices. Since Joe Biden’s election, the Hasina regime has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the West over the issues of good governance and human and labour rights violations. The US Treasury imposed sanctions on senior law enforcement officers in Bangladesh on Dec. 10, 2021, under the Magnitsky Act. This has led to diplomatic efforts to pressure the Hasina Administration to provide more space for opposition parties, creating tension between the Hasina and Biden Administrations. The move highlights the US’s commitment to democracy and fair elections. As part of the pursuit of democracy and good governance, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has highlighted US policy regarding human and labor rights. Two times recently, he publicly stated that Bangladeshi garment factory workers making less than $100 per month do not have the right to join unions, do not have job security, and do not have any dignity. The Guardian’s recent story about Bangladeshi female garment factory workers being forced to work in deplorable conditions as sex workers was shocking in this regard.
Antony Blinken and his deputies are well-known in Bangladesh. Political and business elites, analysts, intellectuals, and even laymen in the country regularly make observations about the punitive and “impending and drastic” US and Western sanctions on the country or “all is well between Dhaka and Washington” type half-baked comments and biased assertions. The ongoing pro- and anti-Hasina narratives have made truth the first casualty, leading to a wave of uncertainties and rumours that are being perceived as “authentic news”. Biased comments and assertions have led to rumours and uncertainties, making it challenging to predict major players’ roles in shaping Bangladesh’s political economy. It’s unclear why some assume that Hasina has lost the battle to rule.
The Hasina administration’s behaviour has raised many questions about the regime’s future. There is a looming threat of sanctions over Bangladesh’s garment sector ahead of the upcoming elections on 7th January, 2023. Western sanctions, likely to come after the elections, would pose a significant challenge to the country. There are mixed signals being given by Hasina’s administration about the actions they will take before and after the polls. However, the rumours spread by vested interest groups in the Hasina administration have already been proven as nothing but a fabrication.
Hasina seems resigned to her bleak political future. When America threatened further sanctions if she didn’t hold credible elections, she admitted helplessness. Despite receiving a letter urging her to hold fair elections, she proceeded recklessly, desperate to hold the polls despite knowing she would lose to the opposition. She’s determined to hold the elections on her way. Despite objections from the Biden Administration, Hasina is determined to proceed with the elections on her way. She has also expedited the trial of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, who on the New Year’s Day was sentenced to six months imprisonment on false charges but granted bail within hours. Hasina is disregarding the norms of free, fair, inclusive, and competitive polls, as seen in every other free country except North Korea and its allies.
The Hasina Administration, the judiciary, and the Election Commission have engaged in ridiculous theatrics and unprecedented caricatures in recent months. One can only laugh at such absurd behaviour. It’s unbelievably true that having killed four BNP supporters and arrested over 20,000 party leaders and workers in a crackdown on the country’s largest opposition party, the Hasina Regime is now seeking nomination papers from political parties (excluding the BNP) and individuals to contest the 7th January elections. Over forty political parties, among them the ruling Awami League, are participating in the elections. Additionally, a few hundred independent and “dummy candidates” — a term coined by Hasina herself for ruling party candidates running as independents — are also contesting the polls. Some rebel Awami League candidates are also running against the party’s official candidate, which is against the party’s constitution, and anyone found doing so is liable to be expelled from the party. A strange situation indeed! Hasina is violating both the country’s and her own party’s constitutions.
Aside from the caricatures and humour, Bangladesh’s recent actions have raised concerns about democracy, human rights, and the country’s stability. Opposition candidates are running with the ruling party’s symbol, and many are nominated by both their own party and the Awami League. The election seems like political incest between opponents from the same party. Candidates in Hasina’s elections made absurd claims. Professor Abdul Mannan claimed he was supported by Hasina and India, and warned officials not to work against him. Some candidates threatened violence against voters, while ruling party candidates intimidated voters with threats of severe repercussions if they didn’t show up to vote.
It’s time for President Biden and US lawmakers to pay heed to what Ambassador (ret) William Milam, President of Right to Freedom, and Michael Kugelmann of the Wilson Center have urged his administration and Congress recently. He has called for immediate and drastic measures against the Hasina Administration by revising America’s economic, political, and all other relations with Bangladesh, including trade. Milam expressed concern at the plight of thousands of political detainees in the country. He believes that the 2014 and 2018 polls were grossly rigged in favour of the ruling Awami League and that the ensuing elections would be nothing but a sham. He believes that Hasina will have to pay a heavy price for her wrongdoings. Kugelmann calls for direct US intervention in the country for the sake of democracy and freedom. He calls the country an “illusion of democracy” and Hasina the “main culprit” under the Indo-Chinese-Russian tutelage. He wants to see an immediate end to this. One can’t agree more with Milam and Kugelmann.
In sum, addressing Bangladesh’s current political and economic situation is crucial. With a brutal and corrupt totalitarian government in power, poverty and inequality are on the rise. The free world needs to intervene before the crises escalate and the country becomes entirely dysfunctional. Last but not least, another pro-Chinese government (under Hasina) in the Bay of Bengal beside Myanmar would spell disaster for the region at large and jeopardise the best geopolitical interests, values and principles of the West and the free world.
*A historian-cum-cultural anthropologist and security analyst Taj Hashmi, Ph.D., FRAS, is a retired professor of Security Studies at the APCSS, US. He has written several books and hundreds of journal-articles, and newspaper op-eds. As an analyst of current affairs, he regularly appears on talk shows about Bangladesh, South Asia, and World affairs. His latest book, Fifty Years of Bangladesh, 1971-2021: Crises of Culture, Development, Governance, and Identity, was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in May 2022. Tel: 1+ 647 447 2609. Email: tajhashmi@gmail.com