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Uncertainty, Hope as Transitional Government Assumes Power in Bangladesh

Dr. Richard L. Benkin - 11/7/2006

On October 28, the Bangladesh Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, addressed the nation and ceded power to a caretaker government after five volatile years. She also dissolved the parliament, led by her Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and its 14 party coalition. Her action was in accordance with Bangladeshi law, which mandates that a caretaker government will rule the county until national elections (held every five years) in January 2007. That orderly power succession is a testimony to the strength of Bangladeshi democracy. The upcoming elections will be the fourth of its kind since the nation ousted its last military dictator, Hossain Mohammed Ershad, in 1990. Unfortunately, little else gives rise to optimism for free and fair elections or a national consensus come January.

Days before Begum Khaleda’s act, negotiations between Bangladesh’s two major parties on the composition of Bangladesh’s caretaker government broke down. The center-right BNP had won two of the three previous elections; the center-left Awami League (AL) won the other. Both are led by women—noteworthy in a nation where 86 percent of the population is Moslem—and the parties are locked in what has been termed a “zero sum” battle. That is, both parties when out of power have done everything they could to undermine their rivals no matter what the cost to the nation. Thus, negotiations between the two are characterized by suspicion, mistrust, and more focus on party than on nation; and that is what undid negotiations on a caretaker. According to the constitution, the caretaker government must be politically neutral, and neither party trusted the other’s candidate.

Almost immediately after the Prime Minister’s speech, the streets of Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, ran red with blood. Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury reported from Dhaka via telephone that BNP members were “on the road attacking Awami League” members. He noted that absent from the fray were members of the radical parties in the BNP’s ruling coalition. Their absence, however, might be attributed to its being Friday, Islam’s weekly holy day, for the next day they were out in force; although not at the side of their former partners.

Yet, on the same day, Dr. Iajuddin Ahmed, an academic and President of the Republic, assumed the reigns of government and attempted to quiet the nation’s unrest before it turned into full-scale revolution. He met with both major parties, and after discussion with AL chief, Sheikh Hasina, the party leader agreed to hold off on further retaliation. It was something short of a ringing endorsement, however. “We categorically told the chief adviser that he will have to prove himself neutral through his activities,” she said; and she urged her people to prepare for launching “an agitation program” if the party believed things to be going otherwise. As Choudhury reported in Weekly Blitz, Hasina offered, “People may have suspicion about him as he was elected the president by a political party [the BNP]. Moreover, his assumption of the office of chief adviser has compromised the basic concept of the non-party caretaker government. So, the president will have to remove all suspicion from the people's mind through his activities, [but if he] can prove his neutrality through his activities by November 3, we may welcome him”

He must have done so because the streets of Dhaka have been quiet since November 1. On that day, Ahmed surprised Bangladeshis by ordering massive firings and transfers. Most of those affected were BNP appointees, which indicated an unexpected level of impartiality (unexpected by all except Ahmed and those close to him). Even the notoriously corrupt civil and police administrations have been hit with these changes and appear to be subordinate to the President.

While the nation is quiet at the moment, however, some commentators see danger signs on the horizon. There have been several authoritative observation of gains by the various Islamist parties, and events of the last few days have seen them infiltrate both alliances. Moreover, Indian intelligence and others have noted a decided movement of Islamist radicals—including Al Qaeda forces formerly in Afghanistan—into the territories surrounding Bangladesh and across the nation’s porous borders. Unnamed Bangladeshis have suggested that the period of the caretaker will be nothing more than a prelude to an Islamist victory in the January elections.

Another Bangladeshi source, who writes for one of the capital’s vernacular papers and wishes to remain anonymous, believes that the elections will not take place as scheduled because the parties will be unable to agree on how to extricate themselves from what has become in his words, “a mess.” He predicts that there will be military intervention, perhaps before the end of November. In fact, it has been reported that the army has been placed on “the highest alert” already.

For now, however, Bangladesh is being run by a respected academic who has gone out of his way to project an image of neutrality. He appointed ten advisors from various parties and ignored some of the more radical ones. Among many in Bangladesh there is a quiet optimism that the period of this caretaker—whether the mandated three months or longer—holds out hope: hope to weaken the radicals; hope that religious minorities will be protected; hope for judicial integrity. At the very least, it is the first time in at least a decade that Bangladeshis are not being ruled by a coalition containing radical Islamists dedicated to the eradication of Bangladeshi tolerance and democracy.