Though their popularity was waning, the BNP-led four-party alliance was confident of managing an easy victory in the January 22, 2007 elections, thanks to different mechanisms orchestrated by the high-ups.
Until January 11, the “uncompromising leader”, Khaleda Zia, refused to change the chief election commissioner, MA Aziz, and had the BNP's Iajuddin Ahmed still at the helm of the polls-time caretaker government.
Moreover, party leaders were appointed as election officials across the country, with Khaleda Zia's elder son Tarique Rahman coordinating the plan from “Hawa Bhaban” – the powerhouse of the shadow government. Tarique also headed the campaigns ahead of the eighth parliamentary elections held in 2001, when the alliance bagged 220 seats in parliament and rose to power after a five-year break.
Then they began clearing the path to cling to power and set the stage to win the election race through different means, according to newspaper reports, political analysts and the US embassy in Dhaka.
The alliance destroyed the level-playing field in the political arena by unleashing violence and intimidation against the opposition Awami League men and the leftists, as well as the religious minority groups and cultural activists, as soon as the alliance supporters sensed victory in the 2001 general elections.
Thousands of central and local level leaders of the alliance, responsible for numerous accounts of violence targeting the opposition across the country, presumably erupted due to political grudge, could not be brought to book even though many of the perpetrators were identified and the incidents documented
The CEC Aziz saga
Khaleda Zia, the head of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), completed her five-year term as prime minister on October 27, 2006 with complacency that she would get her crown back again.
Had this happened in the elections slated for January 22, as per the plans, she would have been the first prime minister since independence to form government for the second consecutive term.
Khaleda hoped that her alliance would win 180-190 seats, compared to the 220 it held in the eighth parliament, as HM Ershad had already promised to support her, she told then the US ambassador to Dhaka, Patricia Butenis.
“[Khaleda] Zia insisted that, opposition assertions aside, her party has strong support from the Hindu community,” the envoy wrote in a telegram sent to Washington dated November 2, 2006.
The ambassador called on Khaleda on November 1 at the latter's Dhaka Cantonment residence. Morshed Khan, former foreign minister, and Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, secretary general of the party and former LGRD minister, were also present.
Khaleda Zia got this house as a gift after the death of her husband and BNP founder General Ziaur Rahman from then president HM Ershad, Zia's second-in-command since 1975.
In 1991, the BNP came to power under a democratic atmosphere. But they failed to gain people's trust and were defeated in the 1996 elections by its arch-rival Awami League.
Uncompromising Khaleda
On the opposition's insistence that the chief election commissioner, MA Aziz, resigns, Khaleda Zia replied: "Not possible," apparently as a tit-for-tat.
She alleged to Butenis that Sheikh Hasina had ignored her demand in 2001 as the then-opposition leader for the resignation of chief election commissioner MA Sayed. “So why should I accommodate Hasina now?”
Mannan Bhuiyan interjected that Abdul Jalil, his Awami League counterpart, had assured him during their recent talks that “Justice [KM] Hasan was the only obstacle”, and that finding someone else to be chief adviser would break the impasse.
During the time, Justice KM Hasan refused to take office of the chief adviser to the caretaker government. On the other hand, then president Iajuddin Ahmed at a meeting with Mannan Bhuiyan and Abdul Jalil expressed his willingness to as the interim government head.
“[Khaleda] Zia described [Iajuddin] Ahmed as an impartial, non-party man favorably known to her from their days together, along with the Awami League and Jamaat-e-Islami, in the anti-Ershad movement in the late 1980s,” the ambassador wrote.
Khaleda Zia also endorsed the ambassador's point on the importance of the chief adviser's acting in a visibly non-partisan manner.
“She claimed that her party had not submitted any names or placed any supporters among the advisers named by Ahmed.
“This claim may technically be true, but according to contacts at the presidency, Zia's party submitted several names orally,” read the telegram.
During the meeting, the ambassador noted that during the recent round of political violence, activists of the BNP exercised relative restraint. Butenis also raised her concerns about the opposition's use of violence during her recent meeting with Awami League President Sheikh Hasina.
When she urged the BNP chief to continue counseling restraint and to “keep in check calls from party subordinates, including her son Tariq [sic] Rahman, for a more aggressive posture”, Khaleda Zia affirmed. She said she “opposes violence and her party workers will not take the offensive”, but she must stand up for them by acknowledging their right to self-defense if attacked.
Corruption, violence
Before the movement intensified, party leaders were appointed as local government officials and in the police force, with Khaleda's elder son Tarique Rahman coordinating the electioneering plans from the “Hawa Bhaban” – the powerhouse of the shadow government.
The alliance lost popularity in 2001 mainly due to persecution of the opposition and religious minorities, widespread corruption and irregularities.
After staying at the bottom of the list for five successive years from 2001-2005, Bangladesh ranked third from last on the “Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2006” published by the Transparency International (TI) on November 6, 2006.
Earlier, the “Corruption Database 2005” released in July 2006 drew sharp reaction from the government, particularly the two ministries that were ranked by the report to have the highest incidence of corruption. They used the media and even the parliament to intimidate the TIB.
The most corrupt sectors of 2005 in terms of the number of incidents were education, police, health and family welfare, and private sector; while in terms of financial losses, LGRD topped the list, followed by power, forest and environment, private sector and finance.
Two of the BNP's allies -- Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikyo Jote -- support Islamic rule while the other -- Bangladesh Jatiya Party -- promotes conservatism and Islamic democracy.
The BNP had sympathized with Islamists since its birth, as Gen Zia removed secularism from the Constitution promulgated after the independence.
Apart from indulging in corruption, Tarique and other top leaders of the BNP and its allies are accused of ordering the use of violence as a tool against opposition men – Awami League and leftists – and religious minorities – Hindus, Shias, Ahmadiyyas, Bauls.
The BNP-Jamaat government indemnified the perpetrators – both members of different forces, party cadres and some militant groups, mainly the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-islami (Huji) – led by Mufti Abdul Hannan, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) – led by Shaikh Abdur Rahman and Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai and Hizb-ut-Tahrir – led by some teachers of Dhaka University and English medium schools.
New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch in a report on the events of 2005 said: “Over the last few years, as religious intolerance across Bangladesh has increased, several hundred thousand Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians have fled the country.”
The HRW said that Bangladesh's human rights record, already of pressing concern, had worsened in 2005, as Bangladesh's security forces, mainly the Rapid Action Battalion, “continue to commit numerous abuses, including extra-judicial killings, excessive use of force, and custodial torture. Human rights defenders and journalists who report on the abuses continue to be harassed and intimidated.”
Shattered dreams
All her dreams ended in smoke at the last minute when the election was suspended following a dramatic turn in politics on January 11, 2007 as Iajuddin Ahmed was forced to resign, declare a state of emergency and stop the polls.
Ambassador Butenis met with a beleaguered Khaleda Zia on February 11. The BNP chief accepted the concept of the anti-corruption drive, but claimed that "most" of her senior figures – arrested on corruption suspicions – were innocent.
The military intervention, also known as “Minus-Two Formula”, had a remarkable impact on the country's political culture during the two-year-long stay of the caretaker administration.
On that day, the military high-ups and chiefs of other armed forces met Iajuddin Ahmed at Bangabhaban. They compelled him to declare a state of emergency, resign as chief adviser and suspend the “one-sided election”.
The military claimed that the moves were motivated by three factors – the UN statements that military participation in a one-sided election could jeopardise its participation in the peacekeeping operations, concern over renewed threats from Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) to thwart the election and continuing protests by the opposition Awami League and its planned actions against the elections.
Their main objective was to create conditions for holding free, fair and credible elections participated in by all parties roughly in a one-year timeframe.
