April 2024: A Déjà vu, a worsening governance

More than three and a half months after the 7 January national election, Jatiya Party Chairman GM Quader opened up to his party members and spoke about the reasons behind their party's participation in the controversial polls, which were effectively managed by the ruling Awami League amid a boycott by its archrival BNP and some other parties.

While addressing a meeting of his party's central committee at the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB) in the capital on 27 April, Quader said: "There was direct and indirect pressure on the party to participate in the polls."

Quader, who became the leader of the opposition in the new parliament formed through the controversial elections, did not specify the nature of the pressure but left indications for interpretation.

He continued: "On 17 December, I made all preparations to withdraw from the election. Then, pressure came directly and indirectly. I will not go into details about the direct pressure; you will understand. The indirect pressure is — if I didn't participate in the polls, the polls would be held and the Jatiya Party would be forced to join the polls.

The Jatiya Party would be led to elections not by me and those who would be with me, but by others. And I understood that the JaPa would be elected as a domestic party and would disappear from the political field. We would lose the political stage, and we would not be able to do anything for the country and the nation in the future."

This was déjà vu for the Jatiya Party.

August 2023: An ominous calm before the coming storm

Almost similar events took place in the 2014 election. The then Jatiya Party, led by his late brother Gen HM Ershad, had decided to boycott the 5 January election and ordered party members to withdraw their nomination papers on the last day of the withdrawal period. Some leaders followed Ershad's instruction and quit the polls. His younger brother, GM Quader, was among those who quit the polls. But Ershad himself could not withdraw from the election. He was not allowed to withdraw all his nomination papers. Ershad withdrew from the Dhaka-17 constituency but remained in the race in Lalmonirhat-1 and Rangpur-3, where he won on 5 January.

At that time, he was not a free man. He was forced to get admitted to the Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka three weeks before the polls as he was adamant about quitting the election, which was boycotted by the BNP-led opposition parties since it was not held under a non-partisan election-time government.

On the night of 12 December, he was allegedly picked up by members of an intelligence agency and taken to the CMH under Rab escort. Rab officials claimed that Ershad was taken there for treatment only. Ershad later said in a statement that the government had kept him confined for refusing to take part in the election.

Before his forced admission to the hospital, Ershad also disclosed the name of a foreign country that pressured him not to boycott the election.
Indian foreign secretary Sujatha Singh visited Dhaka from 4-5 December and met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina with her delegation. What was significant was that she also had a one-to-one meeting with Hasina. Later, she called on the leader of the opposition, Khaleda Zia, and met Jatiya Party chairman Ershad.

Ershad, after meeting Sujatha Singh, told the press that India advised him to participate in the parliamentary election, warning that militants might rise if his party kept off from the polls.

"They said if we don't participate in the election, the fundamentalist group Jamaat-Shibir will rise and come to power. They asked whether I wanted this," Ershad said.

Sujatha Singh herself told the press that India would like to see the "maximum" number of parties taking part in the elections.

While Ershad was confined to the CMH, a group of Jatiya Party leaders started preparations for the polls. On 2 January, Jatiya Party presidium member Anisul Islam Mahmud, considered a close ally of the Awami League, announced Jatiya Party's election manifesto, claiming that every word of it was endorsed by Ershad.

From the hospital bed, Ershad was elected, and later, he was sworn in as an MP. He was made the special envoy of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after she formed the new government following the January 2014 election.

Before 2014, a group of senior leaders of the Jatiya Party, led by Ershad's wife Rawshan Ershad, maintained good relations with AL chief Hasina, and they were in favour of joining the election, defying Ershad's decision to boycott it. They were rewarded too. After the election, the Jatiya Party was made the main opposition in parliament, and some of its lawmakers were made ministers.

A decade later, the Jatiya Party, led by Ershad's younger brother GM Quader, faced almost the same situation. On 27 April, Quader disclosed that they had decided to quit the election but were forced to stay in the race.

"Even if we didn't participate, the election would have taken place, and the Jatiya Party would have participated in it. The government made such arrangements," said Quader.

GM Quader stated that the national election was important to the Awami League for its survival. It had to go to the polls at any cost, otherwise, a crisis would have been created for its existence.

"Foreign countries said something about our election. From that, I clearly understood that at least three major superpowers had given their support to make this election a success. Later, they wanted the government to continue. Besides, several other countries were ready to support the government in this election," Quader further added.

Quader did not mention the names of any country, but India, China, and Russia had openly sided with the Sheikh Hasina government to hold the 7 January election, defying unprecedented pressure mounted by the USA and some other Western countries for holding a free and fair election. Of the three countries, the role of India was most significant in helping the Hasina government weather the Western pressure.

After the election, the Jatiya Party was again made the main opposition in parliament, and GM Quader was made the leader of the opposition.

Since 2014, the Jatiya Party had been playing the role of the main opposition in parliament, and it had already proved that it was literally 'a mango bar made of jackfruit.'

GM Quader was, however, fortunate. Despite questioning the fairness of the 7 January parliamentary election, none of the senior leaders of the ruling Awami League launched any verbal attacks on him. The AL chief and her party's senior leaders consistently blasted the BNP whenever they spoke at any rally or press conference.

The BNP, the main challenger of the ruling AL, had yet to recover from the shock it went through during the 7 January election. A large number of BNP leaders were arrested and put behind bars. Many of them were accused in cases filed a decade ago when the BNP launched street agitation before the 2014 elections, demanding the restoration of the election-time non-partisan caretaker government, a system abolished by the AL government in 2011.

Some BNP leaders walked out of jail after the 7 January elections, but many were still struggling to obtain bail and walk out of jails. In such a situation, the party could not launch any street agitations against the 7 January election and the government. The party had no visible activities throughout the entire month of April. Its leaders, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and some others, almost regularly made comments criticizing the government for what they described as unbridled corruption by ruling party members and a poor human rights situation.

Now, the government formed through the 7 January election was facing no street agitation by opposition parties against it and was running the country as usual. Sheikh Hasina appeared to be the supreme leader of the country and her party. She remained unchallenged. But Bangladesh had been suffering from an acute governance crisis.

The US State Department's report released on 23 April shed some light on the poor governance in Bangladesh, as it stated that although Bangladesh's constitution provided for an independent judiciary, corruption and political interference compromised its independence.

"The government generally did not respect judicial independence and impartiality. Human rights observers maintained that lower courts often ruled based on influence from or loyalty to political patronage networks, particularly in cases filed against opposition political party supporters," said the report titled "2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Bangladesh."

Observers claimed judges who made decisions unfavourable to the government risked transfer to other jurisdictions.

In December 2021, the Biden Administration imposed sanctions on Rab and several of its senior officials for alleged human rights violations. In May last year, it announced a visa restriction policy for those undermining the democratic election process in Bangladesh, but it could not proceed with the punitive measures due to India's influence.

Overall, the report said, there were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Bangladesh last year.

It added that political affiliation was often a factor in claims of arrest and prosecution of members of opposition parties, including through spurious charges under the pretext of responding to national security threats.

The Sheikh Hasina government, however, did not take long to slam the US human rights report for 'systematic use of unfounded allegations.'

The recently released US State Department's 2023 Human Rights Report "failed to appreciate" and "rather undermined" several valued state institutions, including the independent judiciary and certain statutory bodies, the foreign ministry said in a press briefing.

Criticising the report, the Bangladesh foreign ministry stated that this was detrimental to the morale and functioning of such institutions.

"Regrettably, many of the improvements and achievements of the government have not been acknowledged in the report. On the other hand, isolated and unfounded allegations continued to be flagged as part of a systematic trend," Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Seheli Sabrin told reporters on 25 April.

Denial was considered the best policy for the government in Bangladesh whenever any weakness in governance was pointed out. Despite high inflation, a dollar crisis, and a slowdown of business and the economy, the finance minister on several occasions claimed the economy was doing well. This was also part of the government's denial strategy.

But the party could not deny the poor governance in its own ranks. Grassroots-level leaders, particularly relatives of MPs and ministers, defied the instructions of the party chief and contested the ongoing upazila parishad elections. No warning of disciplinary action against them worked.

When the AL chief allowed party members to run as independent candidates in the 7 January election to make the polls competitive and festive, political analysts had termed it a "suicidal game" for the party. The party chief herself ignored her party constitution, which did not allow any party leader to contest the election against candidates nominated by the party. But Hasina herself exempted dozens of leaders to compete against AL-nominated candidates, and 60 of them won.

This time around, MPs and ministers who supported their relatives in the upazila parishad elections defied the party's high command's instructions, putting the AL chief in an awkward position.

A dysfunctional parliament, excessive politicisation of the judiciary and bureaucracy had already worsened the country's overall governance situation. An ineffective chain of command in the ruling party could leave a bigger negative impact on governance at the grassroots level as well. Local-level leaders and activists of the ruling party and its front organisations allegedly often engaged in wrongdoings such as extortion and manipulating tenders for development works. However the local administration did not dare to take action against wrongdoers if they were found affiliated with the ruling AL.

Their behaviour during the ongoing upazila parishad elections exposed their desperation to become part of the local administration and abuse power for personal gain.

Such attitudes contributed to worsening the overall governance in the country.