By hook, crook and ballot Bangladesh’s prime minister wins a fourth term, in ruthless fashion
Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s Awami League probably would have won a fairer contest too
AS RESULTS TRICKLED in following a turbulent day of voting, it grew increasingly clear that Sheikh Hasina Wajed was romping towards an unprecedented fourth five-year term as prime minister of Bangladesh. Along with a clutch of smaller allies, her Awami League party looked set to capture a garish 82% of the popular vote. A rival alliance dominated by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) appeared unlikely to muster more than a handful of the 300 parliamentary seats. But the embarrassingly skewed tally suggested that the BNP was not really the biggest loser. The biggest loss was for democracy itself.
Since winning independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has held 11 national elections under radically different circumstances, ranging from absolute dictatorship to relatively open and free contests. The flawed general election of December 30th represented a sharp reversion to the less democratic end of the spectrum. This was not merely because election-day violence left at least 17 dead. The Awami League, which has has been in power continuously for ten years, flagrantly wielded the full power of state institutions, from police to courts to the Election Commission, to promote its chances. Sheikh Hasina’s party also resorted to virtually every electoral trick in the bag.
In the months leading to the vote, BNP leaders and followers found themselves relentlessly harassed by arrests and prosecutions. The party’s leader, Khaleda Zia, has languished in jail since February, on charges of misdirecting funds meant for an orphanage. During December, BNP officials say, no fewer than 10,000 party supporters were rounded up and imprisoned, including 17 candidates in the election. Another 18 candidates were disqualified on varied grounds—including in Ms Zia’s home seat, a party stronghold—and some 51 others were assaulted during the election campaign.
The sweeping nature of the repression meant that on voting day, few of the BNP’s electoral agents—who guide voters and monitor the process—dared show up at the 40,000 polling stations. By contrast, the Awami League fielded 120,000 agents. In Dhaka, the capital, it was hard to find a single poster for the BNP among the tens of thousands boosting the Awami League. In constituencies expected to lean to the ruling party lines were short and voting easy. In others, voters complained of having to wait for hours, of voting stations closing for lunch, and of reaching ballot boxes only to be told the ballots had run out. “Its like Microsoft 360: they’ve got it all covered,” remarked a BNP follower wryly.
The question that puzzles many in Bangladesh is, why? Why should Sheikh Hasina pull out so many stops to ensure a victory that most observers had assumed was in the bag in any case? Opinion polls had universally shown a solid advantage for the Awami League. Its decade in power has seen incomes triple, exports soar, and every measure of human development leap ahead. Heavy-handed policing and fierce repression of the Awami League’s political adversaries has little effect on ordinary Bangladeshis, who are happy that the spectre of Islamist terrorism has lifted, and proud that their country is hosting some 700,000 Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar.
Sheikh Hasina seems to bear a personal grudge against perceived enemies, which springs both from the murder of her father and other relatives in 1975 (he had led the independence movement and served as Bangladesh’s first prime minister) and from an attempt on her own life that has been tied to figures in the BNP. Some of the ruling party’s rivals suggest that it needs to cling to power to cover its own corruption. The more sympathetic say that the BNP was in fact just as high-handed and perhaps more corrupt while in power, and allied to radical Islamists to boot.
The question now is whether the Awami League’s landslide will bring relief, in the form of a government confident enough to ease up, or increased repression. A recent tweet from Sheikh Hasina’s influential son, Sajeed Wajed, is not reassuring in this regard: “Western media has called every eastern leader who developed his country rapidly authoritarian. Leaders like #Mahatir of #Malaysia, #LeeKwanYu of #Singapore. Can’t find any other fault, sling authoritarian mud!”
