The unfolding violence in Bangladesh is rooted in the abject failure of the country’s two main political parties, the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, to behave in a responsible and democratic manner. The bitter enmity between the two women who lead these parties, respectively Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, has distorted the whole political process and brought about constitutional gridlock.
It was because the Awami League announced it intended to boycott and, worse, disrupt this January’s general election, alleging the outgoing BNP government had fixed the electoral registers in its favor that President Iajuddin Ahmed was obliged to postpone the vote and install a caretaker government, headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed. Both the Awami League and the BNP denounced the move. the president had to turn to the military and to the declaration of a state of emergency to maintain stability.
The growing unrest of recent weeks has sprung from the Dhaka University campus, which was the source of seven years of protest that finally drove the last military government, that of Gen. Hussain Muhammad Ershad, from power and restored democracy in 1990. Moderate Bangladeshis are uneasy at the increasingly military complexion of the caretaker government, despite promises that elections will be held sometime next year. Ahmed has spoken of “sinister forces” behind the protests. He undoubtedly means that politicians from both leading parties are alarmed at the caretaker government’s corruption drive. This has seen 200 leading political figures including Khaleda’s son Tareque Rahman and the general secretary of the Awami League Abdul Jalil arrested on charges of stealing significant sums of government money during their party’s periods in power.
That investigators are picking up figures from both sides of the political divide suggests the caretaker administration is being evenhanded. It does not, however, allay suspicions that by picking off top politicians, the military-backed government is seeking to decapitate the political parties and keep power for itself.
Bangladesh has a tragic record of corruption. Worse, both the two main parties have exploited their devoted followers to bypass the democratic process with violent street demonstrations, strikes and boycotts. Bangladesh deserves better than this. What is needed is the formation of a third political force, dedicated to honest government on ethical principles that leaves personal enmity out of its calculations. This is a country that has thrown up a distinguished Nobel Peace Laureate in Muhammad Yunus and his remarkable Grameen Bank, which has brought economic empowerment to the poorest in one of the world’s poorest states and inspired similar exercises around the world. Yunus himself has said he is uninterested in politics. But there must be other men of good will who have the vision and ability to cut the Gordian knot of Bangladesh’s pathetic politics and offer a genuine alternative to voters.
