Search

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Nation sits on a tinderbox as effort to ‘minus one’ lurches toward ‘minus two’


Shahid Islam

Bangladesh is looped into a political tinderbox. The opt-repeated catchphrase of minus one or two is making a déjà vu, causing fear among national and global observers that the incumbent regime’s blueprint for affecting minus one—Khaleda Zia—- may end up in minus two; sweeping away in its stormy path the incumbent PM Sheikh Hasina too, from the political landscape.

 

Backdrop

 Amidst recurring leadership crises since the demise of the charismatic Sheikh Mujib and Ziaur Rahman, the ‘two battling Begums’ of the two diverse families caused much irritations since the 1990s to prompt the country’s military in 2007 to adopt a blueprint to censor both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia from politics. Thanks to the midwifing of a powerful neighbour, Sheikh Hasina prevailed over that political storm and won the 2008 election to ensconce in power for nearly a decade.

 Eversince, Sheikh Hasina had embarked upon a new blueprint to eviscerate her arch rival, Khaleda Zia, from the political scene through a process wrapped in a legal foil; yet not devoid of retributive political machinations due to the case that had resulted in Khaleda’s prolonged trial, and conviction on February 8, being one of four such cases filed by the Anti- Corruption Commission (ACC) in 2008, while over a dozen of similar cases initiated against Sheikh Hasina by the same ACC to commensurate the military’s ‘minus two’ formula have been quashed since Hasina’s coming to power in 2009. This double standard is making Khaleda’s conviction and imprisonment unacceptable to national and global observers.

 

Revised blueprint

 Curiously, the new AL blueprint has an appendage attached to it. It’s not only a ‘minus one’ design to spin Khaleda out of the political orbit; the nationalist forces led by the BNP are designed to be goaded to joining the Jatio Party (JP) of a despised dictator, HM Ershad, who on February 20 haughtily claimed to BNP merging with his JP sooner, as Khaleda’s bail process get delayed, and a slew of legal hurdles hinder her participation in the upcoming polling. As per that new blueprint, the BNP sans Khaleda Zia is expected to get fractionalized, while part of it is expected to merge with Ershad’s JP.

 This crafty masterplan is as sound and sustainable as Adolf Hitler’s fantasy-ridden blueprint of storming the entire Europe into German subjugation; which ended in a disaster to have changed the profile of global politics for decades that followed.
 

 

 

BNP’s strategy

 The BNP is well aware of this diabolic design of the incumbent AL regime and, so far, managed to keep its party intact. Khaleda’s party is now aiming for a mass uprising to depose the incumbent AL, and, in coming days, her prolonged captivity is likely to usher in waves of protests across the country; culminating in an uncontrollable mass movement due to following reasons:

 First: People are tired of a one-party rule in the country that had gifted bank and share market looting, question paper leaks, unbridled corruption of ruling party stalwarts, virtual freezing of movement due to unmanaged traffic gridlocks, intolerable prices of essentials, deprecated values and ethics, and, total politicization of the civil and military bureaucracies. Simply put: Bangladesh is a horribly mismanaged nation today.

 Second: The BNP under Khaleda Zia symbolized the democratic aspirations of the people by fighting out Ershad’s military dictatorship in the 1980s; by facilitating the introduction of parliamentary democracy and institution of caretaker regimes to oversee elections that had always been rigged under partisan incumbency; by standing tall against regional hegemony of a powerful neighbour that now had virtually taken over Bangladesh’s politics, culture and economy. The BNP under Ziaur Rahman also stands credited for installing multi-party democracy and free market economy, which rescued and uplifted Bangladesh from the dark pit of perennial poverty and pauperization.

 Third: People of the nation, as well as international friends and partners, are unwilling to allow Bangladesh fester under questionable and pseudo democracy for too long; while India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other regional countries glowingly thriving under credible and inclusive democratic governance.

 The BNP is solely banking on that political reality to dawn over the nation sooner in order to deprive the incumbent AL to have another January 2014-type non-participatory election, and, stake a claim on ruling the country as per the mandate of the masses. With Khaleda’s conviction, the AL’s bluff is called, and exposed too, nakedly.

 

External craftsmanship

 Above all, the diplomatic failure of the incumbent AL regime to compel Myanmar to stop ethnic cleansing of minority Muslim Ruhingyas flooding with over million strength inside Bangladesh; the fear of religious extremism filling the void caused by absence of democracy within the country: and the Indian failure to restore a semblance of democratic governance inside its Muslim predominant neighbouring state has led to, according to diplomatic sources, a consensus of Western governments to ensuring an inclusive and fair election in Bangladesh in late 2018, which cannot happen unless the BNP joins the polling as one of the largest political parties of the nation.

 As well, according to published reports, Khaleda’s imprisonment, and the design to censor her participation in the election, are causing serious concerns within Western capitals and the media alike. It’s no coincidence that the Trump administration had lately, and publicly, allocated nearly $100 million to ensuring a fair, inclusive election in Bangladesh and, according to a reliable source, told Delhi to “stay away from aiding the incumbent Bangladesh regime, and stop meddling with Bangladesh affairs, unless the Hasina regime facilitates a participatory and fair election.”

 

Destabilization and consequences

 Whether Khaleda gets a deserved bail sooner or not, what will matter most in coming days is whether her conviction renders her ineligible to contesting the polling. If she’s barred by law from partaking in the election, her party will not join the polling, according to many BNP standing committee members and policy makers. “India too is unwilling to see an election without BNP’s participation,” according to a former senior Indian foreign ministry official, who requested anonymity.

 Hence, the protests and demand for Khaleda’s release from the prison is likely to get bolder and stronger in coming days and months; unless she’s granted bail, and her conviction is overturned by the higher courts.
 
three scenarios

 Three likely scenarios are expected to unfold under such circumstances. First, the ducked-in religious extremists will swoon into the parboiled atmosphere to fulfil their political agenda to blame the BNP, and to prompt the government to unleash coercion and rights violations on massive scale; on which global observers will cash on to isolate the incumbent regime. In the process, the political Islamists will cleanse their blotted image of barbarism and brutality at BNP’s expense

 Second, the military might be approached by development partners or the UN, as is reported to be the case in 2007, to step in to rein in the evolving destabilization to keep the religious extremists at bay from cashing on the swelling anarchy.

 Three, the incumbent regime may not hold an election at all under such extenuating circumstances, and, as per the amended constitution, cling onto power for a time until the global leaders and the UN make a move to step into Bangladesh under the guise of peacekeeping at the turbulent Bangladesh-Myanmar border.

 Whatever may be the case, Bangladesh sits on a political tinderbox that only the incumbent regime can dismantle and defuse by sitting with all major political parties before the nation explodes with a bang.

   >HOLIDAY,MARCH 2,2018

No comments:

Post a Comment