SHEIKH HASINA has served four terms as Prime Minister of Bangladesh, including three consecutive terms since 2009. No one seriously doubts that she will begin her fifth after the elections scheduled for January 7. The government claims the elections will be competitive; 29 parties contest it. However, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the largest opposition party and the only one capable of challenging the ruling Awami League (A.L.), boycotts the vote. She could hardly participate if she wanted to. Most bnp’The country’s leaders and thousands of its activists have been imprisoned over the past six weeks. Five have died in custody since the end of November. Many of those who have so far escaped arrest are in hiding.
This prank highlights the enigma that is Sheikh Hasina, the world’s longest-serving female prime minister. During her nearly 15 years in power, she presided over one of the world’s fastest growing economies and saw the greatest improvement in living standards in South Asia. She has also skillfully negotiated the rival interests of China and India, the rival giants between which Bangladesh, population 170 million, is sandwiched, as well as America, which has a long-standing interest date in the stability of the country. At the same time, the 76-year-old Prime Minister attacks Bangladeshi democracy with complete impunity.
She intimidated the press and captured the police, courts and justice system. She built a cult of personality around her father, who was assassinated in a coup in 1975 and whose face is now plastered all over Dhaka, the capital. She neutralized the BNP’Bangladesh’s leader, Khaleda Zia, has been under house arrest since 2018. Bangladesh’s two previous elections, in 2014 and 2018, were also overwhelmingly in favor of the ruling party. The next one could do it BNP almost disappeared. To give the impression of a competitive poll, observers say A.L. encouraged members of his party, their acquaintances as well as opposition defectors to run as independent candidates.
The mass arrest of BNP Party members were sparked by street violence between party supporters and police after a rally on October 28. It left at least 16 dead, including two police officers, and injured thousands of people, according to Human Rights Watch. ong. The government claims that BNP sparked violence; the party says the opposite. “They arrested 20,000 of us,” says Mahbub Uddin Khokon, a lawyer and lawyer. BNP chief. “We are fighting for democracy. If we participated in these illegal elections, we would legitimize them.”
The arrested activists have been charged with crimes ranging from arson to attempted murder. Many arrests appear arbitrary; Where the police could not find those they were looking for, they took their loved ones. Witnesses say that the police officers who made the arrests were sometimes accompanied by A.L. militants carrying wooden batons.
The repression maintained the BNP off the streets. Road blockades outside Dhaka by the party in November partially isolated the capital. But by early December, deliveries of most goods had resumed. An opposition demonstration in Dhaka, hotbed of anti-A.L. feeling, December 10 attracted hundreds of people, not thousands as usual.
A few Al officials say privately it would be better if the BNP participated in the vote. But Sheikh Hasina is unlikely to pay the price. India, Bangladesh’s main regional partner, calls the elections an “internal issue”. America says it will deny visas to officials it considers “undermining democratic elections.” Yet, like India, it fears pushing Sheikh Hasina towards China, so keen to ignore her abuses. THE EU simply refused to send a full team of election observers.
Sheikh Hasina remains popular in much of the country. A recent poll by the International Republican Institute, an American polling organization, gives him an approval rating of 70%. But in cities in particular, a tough economy has increased disaffection with government. Rising energy and raw material prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced Bangladesh to take a $4.7 billion loan from the government. IMF in January. Foreign exchange reserves remain low, the banking system is under stress and the taka, the country’s currency, is under pressure. The official inflation rate, just below 10%, is probably underestimated. Workers in the important garment industry are unhappy with the recent increase in the minimum monthly wage to 12,500 taka ($114), which is lower than the increase in the cost of living.
Growth nevertheless remains quite robust, at just under 6% over the last financial year. On December 13, the IMF welcomed the government’s commitment to its rescue package and described it as “broadly on track”. The same goes for Sheikh Hasina’s attempt to stay in power. ■