Hopes for Bangladesh

February 2, 2007

Hopes for Bangladesh

HOPES of a peaceful and credible parliamentary elections in Bangladesh have brightened with the resignation on Wednesday of the country's five top election officials who had been the centre of a row over alleged vote-rigging ahead of the polls that were originally scheduled to be held on Jan.22.
The international community has signalled it is ready to help the country.
European and UN election monitors who quit the country due to pre-poll violence are preparing to return to Bangladesh and the UN is said to be considering resumption of assistance. The European Commission is sending an advance observation team to Bangladesh this month to see whether a free and fair election could be held.
Casting a cloud over the democratic environment for elections is the imposition of severe restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly and the state of emergency that was imposed by the caretaker government last month.
It could indeed be argued that such constraints, coupled with warnings that anyone who breaks new media restrictions or a ban on political rallies imposed under emergency rule faces five years in jail, were central to the caretaker government's efforts to end the crisis over elections. Another justification for the curbs could be seen in the argument that the very politics of Bangladesh is so peculiar that it warrants such measures.
The government says it enacted the rules to “maintain security, peace and safety of the people and the state.”
However, restrictions of such basic freedoms run contrary to the very spirit of democracy. Hopefully, now that there crisis seems to be on the way to solution, the caretaker government would remove the measures and allow the people to exercise their democratic and constitutional rights.
In the meantime, however, the basic problems confronting Bangladesh remain unaddressed.
It is no secret that the country is inevitably held hostage to the personal enemity between two women — Sheikh Hasina Wajed, president of the Awami League and daughter of the late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the nationalist leader and the first president of Bangladesh, and Begum Khaleda Zia, the widow of the late general Ziaur Rahman. They have a running blood fued between linked to the killings of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman.
The two women have ruled the country as prime ministers since 1991.
Khaleda Zia led the BNP to parliamentary victories in 1991 and 2001 and was prime minister from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to end of 2006. Sheikh Hasina was in power from 1996 to 2001.
Indeed, it is a distinction for Bangladesh that it has two female politicians leading national politics, but the crises besetting the country have only worsened in the last 16 years. Extensive corruption, disorder and political violence are the main features that characterise Bangladesh today, and local, regional and international experts and observers place the blame right at the doors of Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia. Both women have their interpretations of democracy and governance and they have led their impoverished country towards more crises than solutions. The two women are accused of allowing politics-oriented favouritism rather than efficiency-oriented governance to guide their terms at the helm of power in the country. And their priority, according to insiders, is to inflict as much harm against each other rather than administration of the country aimed at helping it recover from crises and economic problems.
Many Bangladeshis are resigned to the conclusion that one of the two women leaders would emerge as victor in the next elections and assume office as prime minister, and the cycle of recrimination against each other starts all over again.
Against that prospect, it is difficult to envisage Bangladesh being placed on the right path any soon. The option is left to the people of Bangladesh to opt for a third front led by an efficient technocrat supported by administrators who could rise to the challenge of rescuing their country from further disasters. None fitting that discription has turned up so far. Hopefully, someone would turn up sooner than later to lead the Bangladeshis in the right direction towards an end to the chronic problems facing the country.