Irony of politics

Within weeks of the dictator’s fall in 1990, arrested Ershad is being taken to court. Twenty-three years later, he is a crucial factor in whether or not there will be an inclusive election in January 2014. Photo: Star archive

Twenty-three years ago, on December 6 in 1990, Lieutenant General HM Ershad stepped down from power in the face of a mass movement against his rule. Handing over power to acting president Shahabuddin Ahmed in what was clearly symbolic of a sea change in Bangladesh’s politics, Ershad passed into what one thought was oblivion, in the manner of other dictators before him, Ayub Khan for instance.
The fall of the Ershad regime was the culmination of concerted, determined efforts by the nation’s political parties, grouped under the 15-party alliance led by the Awami League and the seven-party combine headed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, to restore constitutional and political legitimacy in national governance. The process toward democracy, having been rudely interrupted by the coup d’etat which brought General Ershad to power in March 1982,  began afresh through his ouster from office.
One of the biggest ironies in Bangladesh’s political history is the systematic manner in which Ershad has remained at the centre of politics. By the laws of nature, through historical precedent, he should, once his regime collapsed in a heap around him, have gone into the recesses of public memory.
In Asia and Africa and Latin America, not a single fallen dictator has returned to sunlight. Ershad’s story has been different. Having spent five years in prison on charges of corruption, he found himself, perhaps to his own amazement, in the unique position of queen-maker in Bangladesh’s politics.
Neither Sheikh Hasina nor Khaleda Zia, the two women he tried to destroy politically and who together waged the difficult struggle to push him from power, have seen anything amiss in banking on his support to strengthen their cause against each other. The former ruler has been in alliance with both the AL and the BNP. That he is indispensable to both parties is a truth which has stood the test of time.
Today, on the anniversary of the overthrow of his regime in 1990,  Ershad continues to cause significant ripples in the nation’s politics. His flip flops, through siding with the AL and then with the BNP and then again with the AL and yet again with the BNP, not only cause consternation in political circles but also provide comic relief to a nation pushed into a deep rut by the two major parties. The ruling AL struggles to keep him and his party by its side in order for somewhat a credible election to be held. The BNP looks to him to desert its adversaries and stand beside it in its war of attrition against the ruling dispensation.
And all this while, the former military ruler causes chaos within his party, in the government and across the country with his inexplicable shifts in stance. He says he will not take part in the elections; then he says he will; and yet again he says he will withdraw from the voting. He sounds alternately bold and fearful. He is not afraid of jail, says he. A short while later, he warns that if the government tries to arrest him, he will shoot himself, for he has four loaded pistols under his pillow.
December 6, 1990, is light years away from December 6, 2013. In 1990, the AL and the BNP celebrated Ershad’s fall. In 2013, they rise and fall with him.
Phoenix-like, Ershad refuses to go away. For its part, a bewildered nation watches it all.