Bangladesh Elections Would Make or Mar Country’s Democratic Future

By: Kayhan Int’l

It seems the trend of the current events in Bangladesh, the world’s 8th most populous country, which is all set to hold the first all-party general elections on December 30 after a decade, will make or mar the future course of the country of over 162 million, over 90 percent of whom are Muslims.
The opposition is already crying foul over what they call the high-handed measures against them of 71-year old Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid, who won the last elections in 2014 because of total boycott by all other parties that allowed her Awami League to regain power.
Bangladesh emerged as a new country in December 1971 when what until then was East Pakistan broke away from the federation because of suppression of the rights of the ethnic Bengalis by the Pathan-Punjabi dominated administration in Islamabad in the west – more than 2,200 km away across the breadth of India,
The latest reports from Dhaka say the website of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which is the main opposition, has been shut down by the government, which claims security reasons and alleges spread of fake news.
The BNP, part of the opposition National Unity Front alliance, contesting the polls after boycotting the 2014 election, is this time without its popular leader, Begum Khalida Zia – the widow of the assassinated President Zia ur-Rahman – who was three-time prime minister, and is now serving a 10-year prison term on graft charges. She alleges that she is a victim of a political vendetta.
Anyway, for the first time since 1991, she will not be on the ballot, and in her absence, 82-year Kamal Hossain, an eminent jurist and one of the members of the 1972 constitution draft committee, has cobbled together an opposition alliance known as Jatiya Oikya Front (JOF), which includes the BNP.
Kamal Hossain, an Oxford-educated international jurist and a former foreign minister, whom Hasina grew up calling "kaka” (uncle), says he wants to stop what he describes as the making of a ‘one-person state’.
Human Rights Watch has accused the ruling party and its supporters of creating an "atmosphere of fear” for opposition activists.
Hasina’s government has been accused by civil society and rights groups of drifting towards authoritarianism, silencing dissent and the press by using an onerous digital-security law.
A spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, asked by a journalist if he was aware of the issues in Bangladesh where "a fair and credible election is beyond imagination”, said the World Body was "following the situation closely”.
He added: "It is very important as a matter of principle that anywhere there are elections, that they be conducted freely and fairly and that the space be given for people to express themselves,” he said.
Opposition figures, however, have doubts over holding of free and fair elections, in view of the attacks upon candidates, along with their arrest and disqualification.
To sum up, in the words of Professor Ali Riaz, a political science expert: "The forthcoming election is bound to be historic, offering stark choices to Bangladeshi voters. The big question is whether the incumbent will allow a free and fair election — one that may deliver it a defeat. But the consequence of the election will be more than simply the election of a new Bangladeshi government. It will determine the course of democracy in the county, or lack thereof.”