DHAKA, Bangladesh: Bangladesh is holding a general election on January 7 and its outcome is already predictable, the world media reported on Monday.
With the main opposition parties boycotting the poll and many of their leaders in jail, the ruling Awami League will be re-elected for a fourth consecutive term. The largest of these opposition parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and its allies say they do not believe that incumbent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will hold free and fair elections.
They called on the sheikh to step down and allow elections to be held under a neutral interim government, which she refused. So all the candidates on the ballot papers will be from the Awami League, its allies or independents.
“Democracy is dead in Bangladesh. What we will see in January is a sham election,” Abdul Moyeen Khan, a senior BNP leader, told the BBC. He was concerned that Sheikh Hasina had become increasingly autocratic over the years.
Critics question why the global community is not doing more to hold the Hasina administration accountable. Her government unequivocally rejects the accusation that it is undemocratic.
Under Ms. Hasina, Bangladesh is now one of the fastest growing economies in the region, even surpassing its giant neighbor India. Its per capita income has tripled over the past decade, and the World Bank estimates that more than 25 million people have been lifted out of poverty over the past 20 years.
But critics say economic success has come at the cost of democracy and human rights, and say Ms Hasin’s rule has been marked by repressive authoritarian measures against her political opponents, the media and critics.
In August last year, more than 170 global figures, including former US President Barack Obama, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and U2 singer Bona, wrote an open letter to Ms Hasina calling on her to stop the “continuous judicial harassment” of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. .
And in recent months, many senior BNP leaders have been arrested, along with thousands of supporters, following anti-government protests in the country.
Mr Khan – one of the few senior BNP leaders not arrested – claims more than 20,000 party supporters have been arrested on “fictitious and fabricated charges” while cases have been filed against millions of party activists. Hasina’s government denies this.
Sheikh Hasina’s opponents want her to step down so a neutral interim government can be voted in. Statistics show politically motivated arrests, disappearances, killings, and other abuses occurring under Ms. Hasin’s leadership. Human Rights Watch recently called the arrests of opposition supporters a “violent autocratic crackdown” by the government.
The eldest daughter of the country’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Ms Hasina was first elected to power in a multi-party election in 1996. She then lost to the Khaleda Zia-led BNP in the 2001 poll.
Both women are described locally as “fighting Begums”. Begum refers to a Muslim woman of high status.
With Begum Zia now effectively under house arrest on corruption charges and facing health complications, the BNP lacks dynamic leadership on the ground.
Added to this was the systematic arrest and conviction of opposition leaders and supporters. Many say that the Awami League has done all this deliberately to cripple the BNP ahead of the January 7 polls.
