Shahabuddin Ahmad
“Courage is grace under pressure — Earnest Hemingway”
Sajeeb Wazed Joy, the only son of the Prime Minister, last month in a meeting of the Jubo League raising his hands into the air said that AL will win the next election and he has facts. Promptly, Omar Faruque Chowdhury, President of the Jubo League (reportedly brother-in-law of Sheikh Selim, AL Presidium Member), made a statement saying Joy’s anticipation was something like the anticipation of Barak Obama, when he was canvassing for his second term as the US President.
Asked about Joy’s claim, Finance Minister said that it was a matter of faith rather than fact. AL General Secretary Ashraful Islam, however, said that he does not have any fact on Joy’s claim. So the country was surprised to hear this from the budding Awami Leader(?) who is from Pirgonj and not from Gopalgonj – Joy’s ‘Nana Bari’.
After making the claim, Joy left for UK and did not wait to attend the death anniversary of his grandfather on August 15. Joy, though new in politics also informed that he would employ a Harvard expert for the AL election propaganda. The citizen’s think that if the ‘Bill Board’ blitz is the brain child of the expert then the Harvard expert will not lead AL anywhere. Such propaganda is not new in the subcontinent.
Ayub Khan of Pakistan had declared a ‘Decade of Development’. Promptly, people of Pakistan began to call it a ‘Decade of Decay’. Indira Ghandi of India introduced a political slogan ‘Garibi Hatao’ (banish poverty), her opponents gave it a different name ‘Garib Hatao’ (banish the poor).
Tareq Rahman, Khaleda Zia’s eldest son is in London for the last five years. He is expected to return home. At home Mirza Faqrul Islam Alamgir is working as the Acting BNP Secretary General for sometime now. Faqrul has earned the goodwill of many because he is educated, has been in politics for long, soft spoken and a well articulated speaker who can drive home his point of view. Instead of making him the BNP Secretary General, Khaleda Zia has kept him on deputation. It appears ludicrous. When Tareq Rahman comes back to Bangladesh he will in all likelihood be given the post of Secretary General of BNP or Khaleda may hand over the Party to him, as media speculated lately. This is unlikely to help BNP because Tareq Rahman has a tainted past, as the promoter of Hawa Bhaban. Besides, a number of court cases are pending against him. Tareq Rahman would have done much better to build himself as a political leader if he had courageously faced the cases pending against him in the country instead of staying abroad to evade legal process.
Dynastic succession
Another person, namely, HM Ershad, former President, and a father is also on the spring board to take a plunge into the political turmoil as he feels people want him back. Ershad has already done his stint as the President, has also been in jail and enjoyed the patronage of AL after the 1990 elections. He is now more It now looks like that both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia are trying to install their sons to lead their parties, so that they can enjoy the political hallo with all privileges, benefits and attention that go with dynastic inheritance. But this is not the natural dispensation of any democratic process. Both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia have been Prime Ministers for two terms each. Both, by virtue of their being either daughter or wife of former leaders, have ruled (or misruled) the country and trying to stick to state power through dynastic succession.than 80 years old, cannot talk properly, but always gives the impression of a young person by blackening his hair and moustache and at times going for facelift. Sheikh Hasina, Khaleda Zia and HM Ershad are running to lead the country in future. In case the ladies fail, their sons will try to fill the gap by their dynastic virtue.
Lust for power has attracted many but these ‘many’ do not realize that power lasts for a limited period. The lives of Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and father of Benazir Bhutto, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and mother of Rajib Gandhi who succeeded her, all sub continental leaders, illustrate that power behaves the way circumstances behave.
The British system
Oliver Cromwell, son of a farmer and a brewer, is a well known British military man and a ruler who had dissolved the then Parliament in the 17th Century. Now after about four hundred years we praise the British Parliamentary System but our leaders, some of whom are educated in Great Britain, praise the system but do not try to emulate the practices which led to emergence of the British Parliamentary System. Can Sheikh Hasina be bold enough to dissolve the present parliament and conduct the election under a caretaker government or some other interim arrangements? It will certainly need courage. It is true that Sheikh Hasina is under various kinds of serious pressures: internal and external politics, regional issues, war crime trials and burning bilateral issues with India. But she can give it a try because a Prime Minister has more leverage than the leader of opposition to initiate the talk.
Khaleda Zia, too, has a responsibility to solve the crisis and come forward with a proposal for organizing a peaceful election. If the PM does not take the lead she can initiate such a discussion.
The Prime Minister in her August 18 press conference has finally said that she will not budge an inch from the existing constitution to hold the next elections. Khaleda Zia too, has said that there shall be no election in the country under Hasina’s government. So, the nation has to keep guessing about what is in store for them in future. Observers tend to believe that a ‘third force’ may intervene. But nobody knows what will be its colour and creed.
(The writer is the Editor of ‘The Travel World’)
Source: Weekly Holiday
