Next govt to inherit both domestic policy challenges, growing external worries: Kugelman

South Asia affairs expert Michael Kugelman has said that Bangladesh's next government will face not only domestic policy challenges but also increasing external concerns.

He mentioned tense ties with India, uncertain relations with the new Trump administration in the United States and a border with Myanmar now controlled by the rebel Arakan Army as external worries.

"Things won't get any easier for Dhaka after elections, whenever they are held," said Kugelman who writes Foreign Policy's South Asia Brief.

He spent last week in Dhaka, where the legacy of Sheikh Hasina's father, former President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, once had loomed larger than life.

"The independence leader was depicted in statues and murals, and his name was routinely invoked in public speeches. Today, he is nowhere to be found, but the city is filled with commemorations of the Gen Z revolution," Kugelman wrote.

Sharing his main takeaway from his trip, Kugelman said the Bangladeshi public is growing impatient with an interim government that has made ambitious promises—to restore democracy, rebuild institutions and reform governance—yet has underperformed so far.

Public safety has improved, with little of the deadly retributive violence that was unleashed against Hasina supporters in the days following her ouster, he observed.

But many police officers are still refusing to report to duty and activists buoyed by last year's movement are regularly mobilising in the streets for various causes, Kugelman said.

Many Bangladeshis, including business leaders, still worry about law and order, he said.

Meanwhile, Kugelman said, Bangladesh's economy is floundering, continuing a decline that began in the last years of Hasina's rule.

Today, inflation is falling, but it is close to double digits. Bangladesh's GDP growth between July and December 2024 was less than 2 percent, and foreign direct investment fell by 71 percent in the three months after Hasina's ouster, said the Foreign Affairs expert.

Besides, he said, the public has limited information about the interim government's reforms process. "Though commissions were formed to focus on subjects including banking and the country's constitution, it's unclear what goals they have set."

Kugelman went on to say, "The government insists that it will all take time; as one senior official put it to me, Hasina eviscerated the country's governance fabric, and there is no easy way out."

Still, Kugelman said, the lack of a formal public mandate will undermine the interim government.

Most Bangladeshis welcomed the new administration last August, but it is not an elected government, he said, adding that the longer it stays in power, the more pressure it will face to call elections.

"According to multiple people I spoke with in Dhaka, two key constituencies already want to see elections soon: the business community and the military," Kugelman mentioned.

Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus said elections could take place by the end of the year or by June next year, but the government has not announced a formal timeframe.

Protest leaders within the government want to see reforms through—and they also likely want more time to build up the new political party that they plan to form.

"However, if the interim government holds off elections to ensure the implementation of reforms, the next elected government could just reverse them," Kugelman said.

This uncertainty has intensified public concerns about Bangladesh's future, he said, adding that by no means are people growing nostalgic for Hasina; there is an overwhelming view that today's situation is preferable to the repression of the past.

"Still, if tangible improvements—especially economic ones—remain elusive, the public's patience will wane," Kugelman said.

The interim government was formed on August 8, last year.