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This election, what will remain elusive is the hope for a new brand of politics that can achieve compromise and consensus between key political stakeholders and offer citizens a real instrumental voice in Bangladesh’s perpetually weak democratic fabric

On December 27, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina presented the election manifesto of the Awami League (AL), charting out her party’s intentions over the next five years. The manifesto has made the creation of jobs its central focus, followed by commitments to social security and good governance as the essential tenets of its core political agenda, which is to build a “Smart Bangladesh” by 2041.

PM Sheikh Hasina’s social and economic accomplishments over the last decade and a half have been next to none in Bangladesh’s history. She has overseen its rapid economic growth, fuelled by her government’s commitment to large-scale infrastructure and energy projects. The incidence of extreme poverty has come down significantly owing to expanded social security policy measures.

Under Sheikh Hasina’s tenure, Bangladesh has also dealt with the problem of Islamic militancy and cross-border terrorism with an iron fist. Perhaps, her most profound accomplishment has been striking a balance between the competing interests of India, China, Japan, Russia and the US, thus allowing Bangladesh to protect its national interest and develop a win-win political and economic rapport with the major global powers.

Yet, all has not been well over the last two years. The economy has been under severe macroeconomic stress since June 2022 — partially due to the economic after-effects of Covid-19 and the Ukraine-Russia conflict, but also due to the gross mismanagement of the financial sector. To put it plainly, Bangladesh Bank’s ineffective exchange rate and monetary policy response to the global economic climate has meant that our foreign reserves lost almost $20 billion over the last 24 months, while inflation has remained high and painful since June 2022.

Thus, it is not surprising that for the first time since 2014, a nationwide survey undertaken by the International Republican Institute (IRI) noted that the majority of Bangladeshis (53 per cent) feel that the country is headed in the wrong direction — even though the personal approval rating of Sheikh Hasina remains high (63 per cent).

Festive offer

This deteriorating economic scene has also galvanised the domestic political space, adding significant momentum to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) political campaign. In addition, up until October 28, the BNP was incrementally fuelling its political movement towards its one-point agenda that it will only participate in the 12th national election if the prime minister resigns and an interim or caretaker government is reinstalled to oversee the polls.

Nevertheless, the BNP’s rigid political conditions have received mixed reactions from political commentators. The IRI’s recent survey notes that only 44 per cent people favour the reinstatement of the caretaker government to hold the national election, while only 25 per cent survey respondents favour a national election under the incumbent government. In other words, both AL and BNP could have cooperated to find a political compromise that would result in an inclusive and participatory national election.

Unfortunately, historic political animosity stemming from the assassination of Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and a devastating assassination attempt on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during the BNP’s tenure (2001-2006) means that the distrust between the two leading political dynasties (the Sheikhs and the Zias) remains acute, culminating in a dysfunctional political ecosystem. This, in effect, means that their dynamics have remained that of a zero-sum competition over the last three decades. Consequently, it is not surprising that the two leading political actors have periodically preferred confrontation over compromise, undermining the sanctity of the electoral process in both 2014 and 2018.

The context that makes the upcoming national election different is the conspicuous interest the West, led by the US, has shown in the process underpinning it. The US has already issued visa restrictions and US Global Magnitsky human rights sanctions have targeted both security and political actors in Bangladesh. More importantly, the US State Department has been vocal about its desire to see a free, fair and peaceful national election in 2024. But the underlying motivation that has ignited US interest in Bangladeshi politics is heavily speculated by political actors.

Some believe that the Biden administration is using Bangladesh to send a wider signal concerning its intention to halt democratic regression in different countries and strengthen its global democratic alliance. Others believe that the US is more interested in its immediate desire to induct Bangladesh in its Indo-Pacific Strategy and keep the rising South Asian power as far as possible from China’s influence in the region. Of course, PM Sheikh Hasina’s steadfast commitment to a neutral foreign policy position with respect to China, India and the US has made her a difficult ally for all of them.

Therefore, whether a national election marred by violence and boycotted by the principal opposition will receive US-led Western endorsement remains to be seen — and if serious red flags are raised and economic sanctions are imposed, then Bangladesh’s economic backbone, which depends on the export of ready-made garments, will receive a serious shock. In short, Bangladesh’s near-term political and economic future rests on the capacity of the present government to negotiate a soft rebuttal of the current political scenario that does not involve hard economic measures or sanctions. Moreover, going by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s track record, it is not unlikely that she will be able to find some concession from Western powers even though the political waters will remain murky.

On the whole, the upcoming 12th national election will give Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government legal continuity but it is unlikely to heal a deeply divided political arena that is plagued by distrust and confrontation. Furthermore, what will remain elusive is the hope for a new brand of politics that can achieve compromise and consensus between key political stakeholders and offer citizens a real instrumental voice in Bangladesh’s perpetually weak democratic fabric.

The writer is senior economist at the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh

This article was originally published on The Indian Express.  
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.