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
