Bangladesh goes to the polls for parliamentary elections boycotted by opposition
One hundred and twenty million Bangladeshis are expected to go to the polls on Sunday (January 7th) for a general election that is sure to give Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina a fourth consecutive term, after a boycott by opposition parties.
Preparation of election materials at a school in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, on January 6, 2024. AP - Altaf Qadri
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These are elections whose outcome seems to have already been written. In the absence of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which has decided to boycott the election, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been in power continuously since 2009, is guaranteed to win a fourth consecutive term. "Participating in elections under Ms. Hasina, against the aspirations of the Bangladeshi people, would undermine the sacrifices of those who fought, shed their blood and gave their lives for democracy," said exiled BNP leader Tarique Rahman.
The main opposition party believes that the government, which controls the entire administration, will manipulate the vote. "It starts at the time of selection," Shahdeen Malik, administrator of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, told our regional correspondent, Sébastien Farcis. There is an entrance exam into the administration, and once the candidates have been admitted, the police must approve their profile. This is normally to make sure they do not have a criminal history, but I have seen many cases where they were turned away from the administration because of their political allegiance or that of their family. And that politicizes the administration. This is even more important for promotions, which are now almost entirely dependent on political considerations.
»Read alsoVisionary icon or authoritarian dynast? Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh's elusive ruler
As a result of this boycott, Sheikh Hasina's party, the Amawi League, has virtually no opponents in the constituencies it is running. But he failed to field candidates in some of them, ostensibly to avoid the unicameral parliament being seen as an instrument of a single party. Some voters say they were threatened with confiscation of their government benefit cards, which are needed to obtain social benefits, if they refused to vote for the Awami League.
Repression
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and other parties staged protests last year to demand the resignation of the prime minister and promote a neutral caretaker government to oversee the elections, but were unsuccessful. Some 25,000 opposition cadres, including all local BNP leaders, were arrested in a subsequent crackdown, according to the party. The government reported 11,000 arrests.
Also on Saturday morning, a senior BNP official and six activists were arrested in Dhaka, the capital. They are accused of sabotage after a fire on a commuter train killed at least four people on Friday. Several fires have taken place since last year on the railway network, described as "deadly acts of sabotage" by the police, who accuse the BNP of being behind them. The opposition party, for its part, denies any involvement, and accuses the authorities of fomenting these fires in order to accuse the opposition and carry out a campaign of repression against it.
The political scene in the country of 170 million people has long been dominated by the rivalry between Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the country's founder, and Khaleda Zia, a two-time prime minister and wife of a former military ruler. Sheikh Hasina, 76, has dominated since returning to power in 2009, and has tightened his grip after two elections marred by irregularities and accusations of fraud.
A battered economy
While the Bangladeshi government is regularly accused of systematic human rights abuses and ruthless repression of the opposition, the success of its economic policies has long guaranteed the popularity of its prime minister. Bangladesh is indeed one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, with a rate of about 7% per year, driven by the textile industry, which generates 85% of the country's $55 billion in annual exports. The government has concluded many infrastructure projects to improve the flow of goods, such as the huge Padma bridge over the Ganges. But the Covid crisis and the rise in oil prices since the war in Ukraine have pushed inflation up to more than 10% per year, and widened the public deficit.
But the challenges have multiplied recently, with prices of most commodities rising and widespread blackouts in 2022. Faced with this inflation, thousands of textile workers led a historic strike movement, marked by the burning of several factories and severely repressed. And the coming months are going to be challenging. "The price of fuel is likely to rise further, and because of this, bankers fear that our local currency will lose half its value against the dollar within three months," Shahdeen Malik, a director of a Bangladeshi bank, told RFI. Our foreign exchange reserves have also fallen by two-thirds in two years, and we need to start repaying large Chinese loans by the end of this year. So that could create a real problem.
»Bangladesh also took out a €4.3 billion loan from the IMF last year, of which the country has already received the first two tranches.
Read alsoIn Bangladesh, garment workers are still wearing themselves out for a "poverty wage"
(
And with AFP)
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Elections in Bangladesh: an election that promises to be unsurprising in a climate of repression
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