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NEIGHBOURS: BANGLADESH
Emphatic Victory
The BNP-led alliance's win is a cause for worry for
an India beset by fundamentalist neighbours
By Ruben Banerjee
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HARD LINE: Hitching on to fundamentalist parties has paid
off for Begum Zia
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Bangladesh's elaborate
network of rivers and estuaries ensures that boats are a popular means
of transport. But they are not dependable and often sink in the country's
turbulent waters. That's what former prime minister and Awami League chief
Sheikh Hasina discovered in the parliamentary polls held on October 1
when there weren't many takers for her election symbol-a boat.
Having willingly transferred power to a neutral
caretaker government to facilitate peaceful elections, Hasina's voyage
has ended abruptly. Riding on a groundswell of disenchantment against
her, arch rival Begum Khaleda Zia not only ensured that the Awami boat
was sunk but also managed a landslide victory for her Bangladesh Nationalist
Party (BNP)-led four-party alliance. "It's a victory for the people.
Right has won over wrong," cooed the triumphant Begum, having secured
an absolute majority in Parliament with a tally of 201 out of the 300
seats.
"The elections were free but not fair,"
Hasina quickly shot back, adding that she "rejected" the results.
Though she tried to put on a brave face, there was no denying the mandate
of an overwhelming majority of 7.5 crore Bangladeshis. Even in perceived
bastions like Chittagong, Khulna and Dinajpur, the League was crushed.
In Chittagong, the party won only two of the 19 seats while in central
Dhaka, it drew a blank. Almost all of Hasina's ministerial colleagues
lost the elections. Those who won just scraped through, like former home
minister Mohammad Naseem, who won in only one of the three seats he contested.
Even Hasina lost Rangpur, one of the five seats she contested.
"The verdict was a measure of the people's
anger against what they felt was Hasina's high-handedness and arrogance,"
observes Enayetullah Khan, political commentator and the country's former
ambassador to China. This, despite the fact that the Hasina government
had notched up several achievements that would in normal circumstances
have held it in good stead. Agricultural production was booming and Bangladesh
had overnight transformed into a food-surplus country. Infrastructure
too had got a fillip: the bridge across the Jamuna river was commissioned
and six more bridges were nearing completion. Several hundred kilometers
of expressways were also built. Yet, the Awami League government was voted
out.
The main reason being cited for this is the failure
of law and order. A host of the League's leaders were seen to be sponsoring
lawlessness which bred contempt for the ruling party. The sense of insecurity
increased as reports of "criminal exploits" of VIPs did the
rounds. A minister's son was accused of encroaching upon an apartment
in Dhaka's upmarket neighbourhood of Uttara. Another minister's son was
charged with murder while a prominent MP was said to be maintaining a
5,000-member private army.
Coupled with this high-handedness, it is believed
that Hasina committed a strategic blunder by branding anyone who was ranged
against the Awami League as pro-Pakistan. Fashioning herself as the true
inheritor of Bangladesh's liberation legacy, Hasina chose to turn the
election into a referendum between pro-liberation and anti-liberation
forces. This failed to catch the popular imagination.
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