The year 2024 started off as any other, with the previous government holding yet another farcical election with relatively low voter turnout and even lower participation from opposing political parties, no one anticipated how everything would change in the matter of six months.
August 5 gave us a new Bangladesh, Bangladesh 2.0, one where the youth finally wrested the keys to the country away from a government which had all but discarded any pretenses of maintaining Bangladesh’s democratic nature and placed it firmly in the hands of an interim government which has, thus far, shown a desire to undo the decades of damage dealt to our many institutions.
To say that the possibilities are now endless would be an understatement. A decade and a half of suppression, economic uncertainty, corruption of immeasurable scale, now leaves the door open for Bangladesh to manifest its own destiny. And it all starts with the reforms which the incumbent government has promised us for so long.
The rehabilitation of our ailing institutions, which were all but left crippled and hemorrhaging by more than a decade of subservience, is crucial -- our judiciary, law enforcement, and financial sector need to be deprogrammed from the system of corruption and impunity under which they have operated for so long and be re-established as systems of checks and balances keeping those in power answerable to the common people.
While a general time frame for the upcoming election has already been laid out by the current government, any future elections must be held in accordance with the core pillars upon which Bangladesh was birthed. The will of the people must come above party politics.
The economy, in a state of near stagnation at the best of times and on the verge of collapse at worst in the past few years, will take time to recuperate. But that requires a rejuvenated business and investment environment and for our foreign diplomacy to establish impactful trade relations with our international partners near and far.
The slate is once again clean and Bangladesh has everything to look forward to in this new year.
The Dhaka Tribune wishes all of its readers a very happy new year.
August 5 gave us a new Bangladesh, Bangladesh 2.0, one where the youth finally wrested the keys to the country away from a government which had all but discarded any pretenses of maintaining Bangladesh’s democratic nature and placed it firmly in the hands of an interim government which has, thus far, shown a desire to undo the decades of damage dealt to our many institutions.
To say that the possibilities are now endless would be an understatement. A decade and a half of suppression, economic uncertainty, corruption of immeasurable scale, now leaves the door open for Bangladesh to manifest its own destiny. And it all starts with the reforms which the incumbent government has promised us for so long.
The rehabilitation of our ailing institutions, which were all but left crippled and hemorrhaging by more than a decade of subservience, is crucial -- our judiciary, law enforcement, and financial sector need to be deprogrammed from the system of corruption and impunity under which they have operated for so long and be re-established as systems of checks and balances keeping those in power answerable to the common people.
While a general time frame for the upcoming election has already been laid out by the current government, any future elections must be held in accordance with the core pillars upon which Bangladesh was birthed. The will of the people must come above party politics.
The economy, in a state of near stagnation at the best of times and on the verge of collapse at worst in the past few years, will take time to recuperate. But that requires a rejuvenated business and investment environment and for our foreign diplomacy to establish impactful trade relations with our international partners near and far.
The slate is once again clean and Bangladesh has everything to look forward to in this new year.
The Dhaka Tribune wishes all of its readers a very happy new year.
