The year began with a blockade of the streets. Bangladesh was gripped in a long drawn political unrest with months of general strikes and shutdown. The main opposition BNP was out to foil the elections that the ruling Awami League had planned to hold despite clear indication from the opposition that it would not take part.
Eventually, a one-sided election was held on January 5, through which the Awami League came to power for the second time in a row. It was literally uncontested and arch rival BNP, which boycotted the election, was thrown out of parliament for the first time in 23 years.
Since the January election and until the last couple of months of 2014, BNP’s activities were mainly limited to indoor discussions and press conferences. BNP’s only visible outdoor programmes were its chief Khaleda Zia’s once- or twice-a-month tours and accompanying rallies in districts outside Dhaka.
Having invested so much for resisting the January election – especially in street violence throughout the preceding year – in vain, it was a massive blow for the BNP and its 20-party alliance partners.
As a change of strategy, the party, along with its alliance, tried to move on some other issues such as water sharing of common rivers with India and the proposed broadcast policy. They organised several programmes such as long-marches, but none of them managed to generate much public participation.
As the year draws to a close, the party is looking to heat up the political arena again, looking to finally “lodge a strong movement to topple the government and realise the demand for election under a non-partisan administration” – a pledge that senior leaders have been making throughout the year, evidently missing their own deadlines of “showdowns.”
The way things have been unfolding over the last week or so, it appears that 2014, which started with political violence, is going to end the same way, with BNP warming up after a year of relative inertia.
Just like the year before, the Awami League government has also been applying the same techniques – arrest and lawsuits – to intimidate the opposition.
The ruling party’s student front, Chhatra League, has been a major headache throughout the year. They are widely held responsible for the deaths of several people caught in factional infighting.
Abdul Moyeen Khan, BNP standing committee member, said: “The challenge of politics in Bangladesh at this moment is that of democracy. Since the election of January 5, the last one year has seen a total political stalemate which had crippled the economy, society and all other sensible activities in Bangladesh.”
Political analyst Afsan Chowhury said: “The year 2014 is basically a projection of 2013. I do not think people are worried about democracy anymore; they do not have time to think about democracy. There is no democracy in parliament. Social democracy is attacked by state, which is not a good sign.”
Upazila elections
Although it boycotted the January polls, BNP and its partners decided to take part in the upazila elections of in February-June, seizing it as an opportunity to rejuvenate its grassroots, which were then reeling from the fallout of staying out of power for five years.
With happy memories from the 2013 city elections in which BNP-backed candidates came out with clean sweeps, the BNP and its partners started off well in the upazila polls, doing better than the ruling party in the first two phases.
The Awami League and its partners came back in the next three major phases, eventually carrying the majority of upazilas (sub districts). The local polls eventually ended as a tightly fought contest.
Reorganisation
Having done well in the upazila polls, the BNP then took to reorganising the party, looking to shake its associate bodies out of inertia holding their long overdue councils.
Ever since their movement to prevent the election failed, the BNP high command, including its chairperson, Khaleda Zia, has been saying that they would strengthen the movement to topple the “illegal” government after the reorganisation process is complete.
But that plan never quite worked out. The reorganisation process started with the formation of a new committee of its labour front Sramik Dal. But those left out, made things difficult for the central leadership by expressing discontent openly and loudly.
The same thing happened after its student front, Chhatra Dal, got a new committee. Some student leaders who thought they were deprived, even vandalised the BNP head office in Nayapaltan.
The party then abandoned its plan to reorganise its ranks and concentrated on rejuvenating the leaders and activists by holding discussions.
The ruling Awami League has also been trying to regroup at the grassroots, holding councils in several districts throughout the year, some of which turned violent, thanks to the aggrieved leaders and activists.
Afsan Chowdhury said: “The Awami League is becoming stronger day by day and BNP weaker. It has become a prime challenge for the BNP to keep its leaders and activists in the party as they do not do politics with passion. It requires money to maintain leaders and activists.”
BNP leader Moyeen Khan said “The government pretends to be very strong while in reality they have hardly any solid ground beneath their feet,” said Moyeen.
Nuh-ul-Alam Lenin, presidium member Awami League, said: “It was a good year for the country as there was peace and stability; the pace of development was restored. The construction of Padma bridge started and the country is for the first time exporting food because there has not been any big natural calamity.”
JaPa’s strange JS presence
Ousted military dictator HM Ershad’s Jatiya Party (JaPa) gave rise to a lot of drama before January election. Ershad made several somersaults in the build up to the polls – announcing his participation in the morning and making a U-turn by the same evening.
Eventually, JaPa did participate as an ally of the Awami League and won enough seats to become the main opposition in parliament.
Interestingly, while Ershad’s wife and his party’s presidium member, Rowshan was made leader of the opposition, the former dictator who is head of the party, was made a special envoy to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
While JaPa constituted the main opposition, several of its MPs were given portfolios in the Sheikh Hasina-led cabinet.
The party and its parliamentary team leader Rowshan has been criticised for being too soft towards the government. In the four sessions of the JatiyaSangasad (JS) in 2014, the JaPa staged only four walkouts which is unusual compared to Awami League and the BNP’s tenure in opposition.
In the latter half of the year, a clear rift between Ershad and Rowshan became evident. One group expressed their allegiance to Ershad while the other to Rowshan. According to insiders, by the end of the year, the Rowshan loyalists were in a better position than those banking on Ershad because she had been maintaining good ties with the government.
Interestingly, Awami Leauge presidium member Nuh-ul-Alam Lenin also thinks that the JaPa has failed to be the kind of opposition that the country needed.
“There is no real opposition in the country which is not good for Awami League. If there was an opposition that believes in the spirit of Liberation War and secularism that could point out the Awami League’s mistakes, then people would find a good alternative. It is not good that the Awami League will stay in office forever; but who will the people go to?” the Awami League leader wondered.
BNP leader Abudl Moyeen Khan said: “While the parliament is a non-representative one, everything emanating from this parliament, including the formation of the government and the enactment of new laws, all lack the legitimacy of the representation of the people of this country.”
Chhatra League’s ‘heroics’
People will associate the memories of Chhatra League in 2014 with a number of infightings that has led to the closure of several universities around the country in one year.
Most recently, Sumon Das, Chhatra League activist and third year BBA student of the International University of Sylhet, was killed in clashes at Sylhet’s Shahjalal University of Science and Technology between two factions of Chhatra League. This is the fourth time such clashes took place in the university over the past one year.
On 31 March, Sayad Ibne Mumtaz, organising secretary of Bangladesh Agricultural University unit of Chhatra League, was killed in an infighting.
The ruling Awami League’s student front Chhatra League made headlines throughout the year also by taking part in abductions, mugging, extortion, tender manipulation, admission trade, assaulting teachers, attacking journalists, and so on.
Reports show that over the last six months, Chhatra League got involved in factional clashes over 250 times and with other organisations over 150 times.
Tarique’s history lessons
The year 2014 saw Khaleda Zia’s eldest son and BNP Senior Vice-Chairman TariqueRahman, living in London for seven years, become quite the historian, giving his own version of Bangladesh’s history and the Liberation War.
His main targets were Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding president of Bangladesh, and the Awami Leauge. His distorted versions gave rise to substantial criticism and a number of lawsuits.
But towards the end of the year, as he went to the extent of calling Bangabandhu a razakar — collaborator of the Pakistani Army — demands for bringing sedition charges against him were raised. Subsequently, several lawsuits were filed and arrest warrants issued against him for his outrageous remarks.
The Latif apologue
Awami League veteran Latif Siddique was fired from the cabinet and also from the party because of some remarks he had made in the USA on Hajj, Tablighi Jamaat and PM’s son SajeebWajed Joy.
A few weeks ago, Latif surrendered before a court and was subsequently sent to jail in connection with several lawsuits filed against him for demeaning Islam.
Latif was not the only Awami League minister to have faced criticism for letting their mouths loose. During a Dhaka visit of Nisa Desai Biswal, a junior US diplomat, Awami League General Secretary and LGRD Minister Syed Ashraf called her a “two-paisa minister”.
New cartels and parties
The BNP-Jamaat alliance is still a 20-party unit. It comprises several parties who do not even have a registration with the Election Commission and very little or no organisational activities.
Some of the leaders of these name-only parties, apparently displeased with the BNP, broke away from the alliance and formed a separate combine of their own named the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
However, as expected, apart from holding a press conference to announce their formation, there have not been any notable activities since its formation a few months ago.
Barrister Nazmul Huda, kicked out of the BNP, recently announced yet another party of his own and said his party would take part in election in future.
