Readers will understand that I am exercising heroic self-restraint by limiting my remarks on the recently completed Nuclear Framework Agreement to two paragraphs. It is, to quote London’s Financial Times, a “singular” achievement, and in my view another possible inflection point in the modern history of the Middle East.
The mood is upbeat -- the agreement was greeted rapturously by Iranian crowds, and President Rouhani of Iran voiced hopes that the agreement was but the first step of a rapprochement between Iran and hostile nations in the West. President Obama spoke of similar hopes and warned his domestic critics not to try to block a final agreement. I wonder if this accord has not become “too big to fail”?
This accord is much written about, but perhaps a similar gamble that is not so much in the news except in the country in which it seems to be occurring -- Bangladesh. It certainly is important in South Asia and to the 160 million Bangladeshis. It is, in substance, more reminiscent of Blaise Pascal’s celebrated 17th century philosophical wager on the existence of God and an afterlife. Unlike Pascal’s unworldly wager, this wager, if it comes off, involves life and death in the uncertain here and now.
While our attention has been on the negotiations in Lausanne, all signs point to the BNP making a risky but potentially life-saving or death-dealing wager with the people. With the strong encouragement of a group of civil society leaders. This strategy has given the AL one-party government the excuse to do what it probably intended to do anyway -- squeeze the political space of the opposition down to a sliver of what it was. Without the constraint of a real opposition, even a very small one, the AL has acted as one would have expected a Bangladeshi political party to act in the zero-sum mindset of Bangladeshi politics -- it has moved expeditiously to eliminate the opposition party.
In spite of this, the BNP appears ready to go to the polls and try to operate as a normal party. The BNP leaders must know that, if the government turns loose all of its malevolent street elements against the BNP during the election, they risk losing most, if not all, of their front-line party street workers to arbitrary arrest, extra-judicial murder, and other strong-arm methods. These are the workers who must be available at election time to turn out the vote bank, to try and stop skullduggery at the polls, and the other nitty-gritties of election work. In other words, they risk destroying the party. This is a huge gamble given the realities, incentives, and perversions of Bangladeshi politics.
Given the unpopularity of the government, the BNP could win the elections if it is left to campaign in a normal election environment (normal in Bangladesh would be somewhat more risky than most countries), which would mean the party worker cadres at risk escaped serious damage. This would amount to a win/win outcome. Or they could lose the elections but still keep the remaining party cadres intact, a lose/win result. Lastly, they could lose the party workers and of course the elections, ie lose/lose.
The first two of these would still be a win for the country as it would signal a return to more normal politics, and give hope for a two-party national election sooner rather than later. The third would be a disastrous loss for the party and the country as it would leave the AL as the only de facto major party, soon to be de jure, I suspect.
Why are the BNP leaning strongly this way? First, I guess is pressure from the civil society, which is desperate for an opposition and totally unable to mount one apart from the existing parties. The so-called “third force” continues to be an impossible dream. Second, I suspect, the total bankruptcy of BNP's strategy for the past 18 months must be clear to most of its leaders. On my last visit to Dhaka, most of those that I talked to claimed they had argued for participation in the January 2014 election.
For some, this may be 20-20 hindsight, but for many, I suspect they saw the futility of using 20th century street strategy in today’s Bangladesh. Third, I hope (and this may be really wishful thinking) that India has begun to understand that stability on its Eastern border, in Bangladesh, requires that both major parties have a shot at the economic rents of governance, and has begun to exercise its significant influence to stabilise Bangladesh politics.