Hasina squandered her exit strategy

M. Shahidul Islam

Forget about what you hear or see in talk shows and daily reporting. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will not quit her post as the premier to pave ways for the inclusion of major opposition parties into the electoral race, which is slated to take place on January 5, 2014, as she herself reiterated again on Dec. 9.
This intransigence has become clear to the UN Assistant Secretary General, Oscar Fernandez Taranco, who had concluded his shuttle diplomacy and met all the stakeholders of the ongoing political imbroglio, including the PM, and made little progress to finding a solution to the crisis.

The nation being at a standstill amid incessant blockade and strikes imposed by the 18-party opposition alliance, the Prime Minister should have known that the prevailing dreadful scenario can only change if she decides to resign, or, the President is compelled to dissolve the Parliament in which case election can take place within 90 days after the Parliament’s dissolution, pursuant to constitutional stipulations, with all major parties joining the race under an alternative agreed mechanism.

What’s the catch?
Make no mistake that the spectre of the Parliament being dissolved is haunting the PM constantly; partly due to her premiership truncating if she is not a Member of Parliament (MP), and, partly due to her mandate to cling onto power until the next PM takes office of oath becoming redundant. The bottom line is: Sheikh Hasina is unwilling to relinquish power even if that leads to the outbreak of a total civil war in the country.
That leads to the most potent question: What is she banking on to risk even a civil war? Internally, the PM thinks the armed forces are fully behind her. Externally, she is confident of 100 per cent Indian backing to her stand.
Missing in that equation are: (1) The armed forces are ‘nobody’s baby’ and they’ll not shoot at people to preserve calm when the polling efforts will be despoiled by marauding protesters from the opposition. (2) According her own finance minister, AMA Muhith, no voters will turn out to vote due to the prescience that there are no other contestants in the race excepting the ruling Awami League (AL).
Besides, the UN, for which the Bangladesh military has become virtually indispensable over the past decades in preserving global peace, will not want the military to side with the government for an election not participated by the main opposition parties.
More worrying is the fact that an ominous prospect of censoring the Bangladesh military from participating in global peace keeping operations will loom large once the military is blamed for committing genocide against unarmed protesters inside the country.

Last option
That leaves the PM with her last option of banking on Indian backing, which too is based on false assumptions and miscalculations. Delhi will keep sticking with Hasina’s game plan to the point its own security in the troubled Seven Sister states of the Northeast is not in jeopardy.
But in jeopardy the Indian security will be due to the civil war in Bangladesh being the ultimate result of the further radicalization of the population who had already been radicalized by the AL’s repressive and hedonistic policies to the extent of fighting out relentlessly a despotic regime within, and, seemingly being poised to fighting any foreign backers without.
Given that the people in Bangladesh know whose bidding the PM is doing at the cost of forfeiting vital national interest, the government seems to be in total darkness with respect to what is brewing behind the scene particularly in rural Bangladesh. Simply put: The PM has squandered her exit strategy due to her game plan not being sustainable. Her government does not have command over 90 per cent of the country, according to reports.
Hence, we must warn without equivocation that any further delay in resolving the crisis will lead to one of the two unpalatable outcomes: (1) PM Hasina risks facing mob justice following a mass uprising, and/or, (2) a military coup will inevitably occur when the political and economic security of the nation get pushed to the brink, which it already is.
of the Northeast is not in jeopardy.
But in jeopardy the Indian security will be due to the civil war in Bangladesh being the ultimate result of the further radicalization of the population who had already been radicalized by the AL’s repressive and hedonistic policies to the extent of fighting out relentlessly a despotic regime within, and, seemingly being poised to fighting any foreign backers without.
Given that the people in Bangladesh know whose bidding the PM is doing at the cost of forfeiting vital national interest, the government seems to be in total darkness with respect to what is brewing behind the scene particularly in rural Bangladesh. Simply put: The PM has squandered her exit strategy due to her game plan not being sustainable. Her government does not have command over 90 per cent of the country, according to reports.
Hence, we must warn without equivocation that any further delay in resolving the crisis will lead to one of the two unpalatable outcomes: (1) PM Hasina risks facing mob justice following a mass uprising, and/or, (2) a military coup will inevitably occur when the political and economic security of the nation get pushed to the brink, which it already is.

Source: Weekly Holiday