Analysis: Conviction of Opposition Leader Marks Potential Watershed Moment in Country's Two-Party System
Category: Instability
Severity: 2 (Low)
Source: Drum Cussac
02/14/2018 (Bangladesh) - Unrest continued on Tuesday, 13 February, as a number of sit-ins were staged throughout Bangladesh to protest the conviction and jailing of the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on corruption charges. The verdict, rendered on 8 February after a years-long judicial process which began under a military-backed caretaker government from 2006 - 2008, saw immediate protests from BNP supporters, particularly in the capital Dhaka where the trial was held, often swamping roads and drawing traffic to a standstill. Clashes with security forces occurred intermittently in the capital and elsewhere, with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas at some protesters; several demonstrators, including party officials, were arrested. However, in the days following Zia's conviction, violence has subsided as the BNP has coalesced around the need for peaceful direct action in response to what they see as the government's plan to permanently retire the Zia family from Bangladeshi politics.
Zia has been a defining figure in Bangladesh' political scene since the 1980s, during which time she along with current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of the ruling Awami League (AL) worked to end the military government of then-President HM Ershad. Since that era, Hasina and Zia have largely alternated as heads of government under their respective party banners. However, the BNP's decision to boycott the 2014 polls due to an alleged lack of electoral impartiality along with violent protest campaigns it oversaw in the years that followed had the dual consequences of robbing the party of a voice within Parliament as well as giving Hasina a greater hand to crack down on those deemed responsible for violence; said individuals include a number of party stalwarts including Zia herself, against whom a various other cases are still pending. However, the current corruption case is the greatest threat to Zia as the conviction resulted in a five-year sentence and would prevent her from running and holding office for a prolonged period of time. Zia has vowed to appeal the charges, which would keep the electoral disqualification at bay as long as the appeal remains pending, but negative higher court decisions before elections later this year could seal her fate.
The BNP has announced that, due to Zia's jailing, they have named her son Tarique Rahman as acting party leader. Rahman, however, has also been convicted in the same case as his mother, receiving a sentence of 10 years; he currently lives in exile in the UK and has a prior conviction in an unrelated case. Thus, while Zia and Rahman may continue to call the shots in the short-term, their convictions (should they stand) threaten to completely remove the family from politics and fatally wound the BNP due to how welded it is to family. Hasina's government, for its part, is likely eager to somehow entice other BNP officials to take up party leadership and contest polls later this year, as back-to-back opposition boycotts would cause significant strain between the government and the international community. Thus, to the extent that Hasina has influence over the courts, she is likely to press the judiciary to uphold the conviction against Zia while simultaneously perhaps offering an olive branche or otherwise convincing other BNP officials to soldier on without the Zia family. Hasina's skills, in this regard, should not be underestimated, as the prime minister has in recent years managed to co-opt former President Ershad of the smaller opposition Jatiya Party (JP) - appointing him as a special adviser to her government - after placing him under a kind of house arrest in a Dhaka hospital in 2013 shortly before the last general elections.
The trajectory of the country's politics is thus unclear, as the better part of the last three decades has been firmly rooted in the Hasina-Zia rivalry. Although Hasina has clearly managed to gain the upper hand in recent years, much of the electorate is deeply disillusioned with what they see as corruption that occurred under her current and previous governments as well. Though Zia's corruption case was launched under a caretaker government, many have assumed that once in power, Hasina pushed for its (adverse) conclusion as well as similar conclusions in cases against other BNP officials while simultaneously pushing for corruption charges to be dropped against herself and others in her own party, many of which were. An added pressure on the BNP to contest elections without Zia is that, should it boycott again, it will be deregistered from the list of officially recognised parties as per Bangladeshi law. While the party has so far maintained that, without Zia, it will refuse to participate, Hasina is likely to call the BNP's bluff by not letting up on any pressure she is applying behind the scenes to uphold her rival's conviction. Yet without Zia, it is unclear what the BNP's vote share would ultimately be, as the party and the candidate have long been fused together as one; voter angst at what they perceive as a politically motivated conviction could theoretically bring more BNP voters to the polls, yet Zia's absence could also dampen enthusiasm for voting for the party. However, at the current juncture, it does seem likely that Hasina's government will manage to retain power by depriving the opposition of its leader as well as of other organisational leadership via officials preceding her who have already been jailed.
Copyright © 2024 Drum Cussac
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