In a speech to the nation on November 30, 1978, President Ziaur Rahman declared parliamentary election to be held on January 27 of the next year and also declared that martial law will be withdrawn immediately after the election. Although newly formed BNP and some other small parties started preparing for the polls, most major opposition political parties including both factions of AL, Muslim League (still a big player then), JSD, NAP etc decided to boycott the election unless their demands were met.
The combined opposition’s demand included immediate withdrawal of martial law, resignation of Zia from army chief position, removing ban on open politics, repealing the fundamental rights suspension which was in effect since 1974, restoration of parliamentary democracy and 1972 constitution by repealing 4th amendment etc. On the face of boycott by major opposition political parties, Zia made a far-reaching set of concessions.
He restored fundamental rights, made proposals of sovereign parliament with the ability to impeach the president. He also removed presidential veto power on bills passed by parliament, put a limit on technocrat ministers and conceded on opposition demand on the selection criteria of the leader of the house.
After these concessions, although Muslim League decided to join elections, other opposition parties including factions of AL, JSD etc continued with the decision to boycott the polls.
To resolve the political impasse, President Zia called for a dialogue with political parties. All parties went to Bangavaban, prolonged deliberations took place but nothing fruitful came out of that dialogue.
As Awami League factions kept insisting on election boycott and as it seemed the country is stuck in a hopeless deadlock, President Zia, against the advice of his political advisors, unilaterally made another set of sweeping concessions.
He withdrew martial law restrictions regarding open politics, started the process of release of all political prisoners, and as demanded by opposition, pushed the election date back by a few weeks to give the opposition parties enough time to prepare for the elections.
President Zia’s gambles paid off: an all-party election was made possible, Bangladesh moved one big step closer to restoration of democracy – the rest is history.
The comeback of Awami League
This little snippet from the past shows how much and how little our politics has evolved in the last three decades. Whatever Zia’s distractors will say, Bangladesh is this Bangladesh today because Zia could hold his nerve during those tumultuous years of late 70s and at the same time he made some very smart political moves including the series of concessions as described above.
At the same time, the pragmatic reality-based politics of AL leaders Mr Abdul Malek Ukil and Mr Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury also shaped the history of Bangladesh. Within four years after supposed-annihilation of August 1975, AL again came out intact as a major political party with wide grassroots support base. Although AL factions won only 41 seats in the election, it secured nearly 30% of the votes. In most seats where BNP won, AL came close second.
It was a time when the mere survival of the fledgling country of Bangladesh was uncertain. Yet, concessions made by one political leader and pragmatic politics by the others helped us defy the overwhelming odds against our survival.
Today, as we are in another crossroads of the history, we need similar concessions and pragmatic reality-based politics from our prime minister and the leader of the opposition.
Holding an opposition-less election is not in the best or long-term interest of the country as well as of the party of Prime Minister Hasina. Yes, she can ignore opposition demands, and if she really wants to hold the elections unilaterally using brute state force, the opposition will not be able to stop her. But by doing so, she will harm her country as well as her own party.
As a result of an election without all party participation, our fledgling democracy would fall behind by a decade. We will turn into another poor third world autocracy. All sorts of militancy will start raising their ugly heads in different corners of this impoverished country. Public disapproval of her government will reach unfathomable low.
Late President Zia was a military strongman running a turbulent country with martial law. Yet he made concession after concession to facilitate the democratic journey. Now it’s time for PM Hasina to show her political maturity and statesmanship and seal her image as the needed statesman for the time.
The shelf life of the administration
Even in modern established democracies, a political government has a shelf life. After a certain amount of years, the political leadership starts losing its grip on the civil administration. In case of Bangladesh, post 1991 history suggested that one political government usually carries a shelf life of around five years.
After that, as the public start craving for a change, the desire affects the civil administration. Starting from administration high officials to local officers in charge of law enforcement – everybody starts second guessing all the government directives and starts wading the troubled water a bit more carefully. They start preparing for a new leadership.
If one political government tries to live beyond this shelf life, there are very high chances of anarchy in civil government. Even during the first term of PM Hasina government, we have seen very demoralising clashes between the judicial branch and the legislative branch of the government. We have also seen the state bank and the finance ministry publicly throwing barbs at each other.
We have seen unelected advisors sitting in and dominating the cabinet meeting; the dismay of the elected representatives at the illegal activities of the unelected advisors were not very muted either. PM Hasina was not at all comfortable dealing with these sorts of serious framework problems of the state and in none of the above-mentioned examples could she offer a reasonable resolution of the issues at hand.
A party on the verge of implosion
If PM Hasina takes oath for her third term as the prime minister, it will be a very safe prediction that extreme infighting will overrun her party. Leadership deprived of government positions and perks will get desperate to depose those enjoying all the perks and privileges.
When we look back at the last five years of the Awami League organisation, we see that despite her nearly-next-to-God stature in the party and in the country, how helpless she was in reining in party rebellions. Yes, at the first stroke she successfully sidelined some senior leadership who seemed to have been tainted as the “reformists” during the two years of Moeen Uddin, Fakhruddin regime. But that was it.
Starting with Selina Hayat Ivy, we have seen how grassroots successfully rebelled against PM Hasina’s directives. We have seen in Kapasia how a pro-establishment leader of Awami League, ex-minister Afsar Uddin running on Awami League platform, becomes too hard a nut to crack in the face of the full ire of ruling party hard-ball tactics.
In recently concluded Gazipur City Corporation election, the nation has seen the drama of the state acting desperately at the behest of ruling party to contain a novice newbie standing up against PM Hasina and ruling party establishment.
Then people of the country have seen how unprepared PM Hasina was in dealing with situations like Lokman’s death where one of her minister’s men allegedly killed a popular rising star in the local Awami League or when one minister’s men in Chittagong publicly beat up a ruling party member of parliament or a high-profile leadership like Sajida Chowdhury and Mosharraf Hossain, or Abul Hossain and Abdus Sobhan Golap, etc clash with each other causing serious embarrassment for the party.
If the frictions and clashes during the five-year term of current Hasina government are indicators of what Awami League has in its future as an incumbent party, it can be easily predicted that intra party feuds, sabotage will reach an epidemic proportion. Any political observer can safely predict that way before completing her second five-year mark, PM Hasina’s government will be inches away from implosion.
A decaying coalition
Five years ago when Prime Minister Hasina took over the helm of the country, she had the most impeccable “coalition of the willing” in the history of Bangladesh at her back. The civil society, the business class, the academia-intelligentsia, the media, the global society vis-a-vis the western diplomats and foreign media were behind her with overwhelming unconditional support.
Now those days seem a faraway time. Except some partisan souls, the civil society has abandoned her, so did the western diplomats. Article after article, one more damning than the previous one came out in the front pages of global news outlets like New York Times, the Economist, etc.
Even more shockingly PM Hasina has been losing the pillars of her solid base among our media and intelligentsia. Media stalwarts like ABM Musa, leading lawyers like Barristers Amirul Islam and Rokonuddin Mahmud are not on her side any longer.
Concessions: The need of the time
On the other hand, if PM Hasina can be seen making the concession on her own and not under pressure, she can avoid stepping in the quagmire mentioned above and she will be showing statesman-like quality Ziaur Rahman exhibited during the 70s.
It is PM Hasina who has to take the steps to convince the opposition to join the elections. She has to do something tangible to convince the opposition to come to elections. Most likely she will lose the election. This loss will be the best exit strategy for her. And this loss will pave the way for a quick and another big comeback of her party.
It is certain that we are going to have an election without a caretaker government. If this election, under whatever leadership it is held, can ensure a BNP participation and can avoid massive levels of state manipulation – it will be the first transition of power in Bangladesh directly from one democratically elected government to another elected government. This will certainly be a landmark moment for the fledgling democracy in Bangladesh.
If PM Hasina can be seen as the architect of this landmark moment of our democracy, her name will go down in our history as the person who finally brought our democracy to adulthood. This will be the magnum opus of her statesmanship.
A rare opportunity is in front of PM Hasina. How can she not take this great opportunity?
It is almost certain that if BNP returns to power, it’s newly gained popularity will vanish rapidly. A return of Tarique Rahman will significantly curtail BNP’s support among middle-of-the-road BNP supporters.
Along with Tarique Rahman’s return to day-to-day affairs of governance, anti-incumbency factors as well as possible perceived upper hand of ultra-right wing political backers of BNP will quickly dissipate all the inroads BNP made in urban educated classes and “middle of the road” Zia admirers through Mrs Khaleda Zia’s visionary leadership style between 2008 and 2013.
Now PM Hasina will have to decide which option will be in the best long-term interest of her country and her party. She can hang on for her second consecutive term, let her party implode and face an ignominious ouster to face another long-term public rejection like it experienced post 1975.
Or she can take a short-term leave from power only to return to power with more popular, a better-rooted and organised party. If Awami League cannot free itself of the curse of incumbency, there is no reason to believe that BNP will be free from the same curse in the next election cycle.
Exiting this mayhem: Options for the opposition parties
The leader of the opposition Mrs Zia led her party to an unprecedented comeback from oblivion. She accomplished this major feat not by violent street confrontation but by avoiding exactly the same. It is understandable that after her bitter experience at the lack of level playing field during 2008 elections, this time it will be hard to convince her to join the election in a suboptimal state of affairs pertaining to the elections.
However, the leader of the opposition also needs to understand that with the type of organisation she leads, it will be very difficult to stop the government from holding the election. And once an election is held, her party will be under more intense pressure from the state law enforcement agencies.
The leader of the opposition knows very well that under any condition, if BNP joins the election, it will be nearly impossible to deprive BNP of a landslide victory. If the leader of the opposition weighs the options she has at her hands – which are launching brutal street agitation to force government into accepting the demands, or somehow find a way to join the election, even accepting a short term defeat about the election time government – BNP has much more to gain, much less to risk.
Under current conditions – with more connectivity, aggressive media activity on the ground – mass scale rigging of election to change the total results will be nearly impossible. Even if that happens, that government will not be able to hide the massive irregularities.
Now we live at a time when there are hundreds of people everywhere all the time with a mobile phone with camera. Some recent events have shown the power of social media and how apt we have become in maximising political benefits with the use of social media.
Yes, connectivity will not be able to completely stop all the election irregularities. But the connectivity will expose all the irregularities and make it very difficult to totally change the election result or showcasing it as a fair poll to the world. Yes, real winners may be deprived of a victory in traditional 50-50 close call constituencies.
But our election result trend shows that the difference between the winner and the loser will be way over 30-50 seats. In this age of a dozen of 24/7 news channels constantly beaming real-time developments from the remotest corners of Bangladesh, an Ershad style media coup will be a fool’s plan.
Moreover, a movement against a widely-exposed, rigged election will have better traction than a failed movement against a non-participatory election. It seems no matter what the government offers; for BNP, joining the elections is the best exit strategy out of the conundrum they are in now.
For an exit out of the current mayhem, our current leadership need a reality check, concession from Prime Minister Hasina and a show of pragmatism from the leader of the opposition, Mrs Khaleda Zia. And exit out of this mayhem – that is what the whole country is eagerly rooting for.
