DHAKA
MORE THAN SIX months after the Sheikh Hasina government fell, the political cauldron of Bangladesh continues to be volatile. It is now on the cusp of more churnings with fresh national elections, by all indications, set for this year-end.
Two important developments took place recently. The army chief, Lt Gen Waker-uz-Zaman, gave an unusually blunt speech cautioning political stakeholders against rising violence and killings. And, the leaders of the students movement that ousted Hasina last August launched a new political party, the Jatiya Nagarik Party (National Citizen Party), on February 28.
Over the last few months, Bangladesh has seen a significant surge in violence, rioting and criminal activity. The demolition of the residence of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Dhaka by radical youth, and attacks on women’s football games and Sufi shrines have raised concern over an inclusive and moderate Bangladesh in the future. The situation reached such extremes by February that security forces had to launch an offensive called Operation Devil Hunt. In less than three weeks, more than 9,000 people were arrested.
In this backdrop, Lt Gen Zaman’s speech contained a stern warning and held a mirror to the people of Bangladesh as to how toxic politics is pushing the country towards an abyss. It set the stage for the run up to elections. The speech has important takeaways with potential implications for the future of the country’s politics. This was Zaman’s first public utterance amid the political turmoil.
Zaman took on the interim government of Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus about its handling of law and order. He attributed the deterioration in law and order mainly to clashes between rival political parties and said this has given opportunity to criminals and anti-social elements. More than 700 inmates who escaped from different prisons during and after the July-August uprising are still at large. Seventy of the escaped are Islamic militants, including those of terror group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh. Notorious criminals released from jail on bail in August are believed to be involved in ongoing criminal activities.
The army chief attributed the inadequate pro-active approach of the police to the fact that many personnel either face court cases or are in jail for allegedly colluding with the Hasina government. He indicated that the state’s security mechanisms, such as the defence and police intelligence units, the Rapid Action Battalion and the Border Guard of Bangladesh, are in panic because many of them face allegations of torture, disappearance of persons and extra-judicial killings during 15 years of Hasina’s rule. Zaman cautioned against efforts to undermine the security set-up and credited the security agencies with ensuring stability for the last several years.
A key component of his speech was the call for an “inclusive” national poll by the end of the year. This is significant because of the repeated demands by student groups that Hasina’s Awami League be banned from politics. The inclusive election pitch aligned well with the UN fact-finding team’s recommendation against banning any political party, as that would undermine multiparty democracy and disenfranchise a large part of the Bangladeshi electorate.
While the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, considered a key contender for power, was quick to welcome Zaman’s speech, there has been a studied silence from the Jamaat-e-Islami party and the student groups. As part of its preparations, the BNP held an extended meeting discussing selection of candidates and its poll strategy. The party’s acting chairman Tarique Rahman also indicated the issues around which the party is likely to weave its campaign narrative—neutrality of the interim government to ensuring free and fair elections, price hike for essentials and worsening law and order. Having been out of power for close to two decades, the BNP is upbeat about its poll prospects as grave uncertainties cloud the future of the Awami League. However, the BNP had boycotted two consecutive national polls in 2018 and 2024 and, therefore, its biggest challenge is to make the organisation battle-ready again.
Can Bangladesh’s traditional political landscape move beyond the Awami League-BNP binary and welcome a new entrant? It is in this context that one has to view the launch of the National Citizen Party (NCP). The event—a rally in Dhaka’s landmark Manik Mian Avenue, near parliament—was a show of strength by student leaders. The NCP will be led by Nahid Islam, who was a key face of the student uprising and information adviser in the Yunus dispensation. Nahid and nine others will make up the core leadership of the new party.
At the launch, excerpts from scriptures of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism were read out to signal religious inclusivity in the Muslim-majority country where Islam is the state religion. Going by the political and economic vision of the new party, the NCP appears to have the trappings of a centrist outfit. It vowed to end polarisation with the promise of a second republic, a new constitution and constituent assembly, protection of fundamental rights and ethnic, social, gender and cultural diversity, prevention of wealth concentration and equitable redistribution through corporate regulation.
However, the emergence of the party was accompanied by discord over leadership positions for other students’ groups spread across the country. There were protests by private university students for their exclusion from a committee to run the NCP in Dhaka and against the attacks on them by supporters of the Students Against Discrimination led by NCP leaders. Former Islami Chhatra Shibir (students wing of Jamaat) leaders have withdrawn from the initiative to form the NCP.
Will the entry of the NCP spark a realignment of forces in Bangladesh? Interestingly, the new party invited the BNP and Jamaat to its launch, but, predictably, ignored the Awami League and the Jatiya Party of former military ruler H.M. Ershad. Jamaat has expressed its willingness to enter into an electoral alliance with the NCP. The BNP is unlikely to welcome such an idea.
The Awami League stares at an uncertain path. Will it be allowed to contest the next poll or be barred from politics by the Yunus government? Even if it does contest, how will it go about regrouping itself in the absence of top leaders, most of whom are either in jail or in exile? It seems like this could be an era-defining year for Bangladesh.