Bangladesh - A political rant

[Rehmat]

One of the two former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, who faces series of graft and extortion charges is now in United States, who was released on bail under executive order, and she did not have the guts to face the trial right inside her own country. When the millitary controlled interim government in Dhaka released Hasina, many raised eye borrows and such release was the indication of return of the old corrupts in Bangladesh’s administration. Recently the same government turned reluctant when another former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia also came out of jail, being released on bail by the higher judiciary of the country.

Since the army seized power in January 2007 and installed a technocratic interim government, it has tried and failed to end an era of dominance by Bangladesh’s two squabbling former prime ministers, Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Sheikh Hasina Wajed of the Awami League.

Yet, after a year in jail on charges of corruption, Bangladesh’s battling begums are back. On September 11th the government freed Khaleda Zia on bail. Five days later, it cleared legal hurdles for the return of Sheikh Hasina from America, where she went for medical treatment following her release on parole in June. She is expected back in Bangladesh early next month.

Both leaders still face charges. But prosecutors are unlikely to take action against them without the approval of the government, which is no longer trying to bring their political careers to an end. So, barring an extraordinary upset, one of them will be Bangladesh’s next prime minister.

It is an astonishing volte-face. The begums alternated in power from 1991-2007 and are blamed for the fiercely antagonistic, corrupt politics that led the army to step in. First it tried to exile them and create a “third force” in Bangladeshi politics; then it jailed them and tried to split their parties, hoping that new leaders might emerge. But the begums’ parties are held together by two things: patronage and personality cult. They are unviable without their leaders: hence the BNP’s offer to Khaleda Zia this week to lead the party “for life”. She declined.

The good news is that Bangladeshis, for the first time since 2001, will get the chance to elect a government. For once it will be almost impossible to rig the poll. The election commission has purged 12m duplicate, deceased or otherwise bogus names from voter rolls. On September 22nd it will unveil a firm date for the election, long promised for December. But the bad news is, Bangladeshi voters will have two options to pick the bad from the worst or worst from the bad. In both cases, the country will once again enter the era of massive corruption and looting of public money by using political might. Moreover, Bangladesh’s aspiration of entering the new age of multi-party democracy and democracy within parties will bogg into the Bay of Bengal atleast for a distant future. Possibly it will be time again for international organizations like Transparency International to place Bangladesh once again at the top of the most corrupt nations for the sixth time. Those who care about good democracy will surely get hurt at this latest episode of political carricature in Bangladesh.