2024-01-05 19:57:04
Sunday’s parliamentary elections have no suspense. The main opposition party boycotts the elections after the arrest of more than ten thousand of its supporters. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is thus poised to win a fourth consecutive term, in a climate of increasingly worrying repression.
First modification: 01/05/2024 – 18:57
2 min
On October 28, the Bangladesh nationalist Party, BNP, the main opposition force, organized a giant demonstration in Dhaka against the call for elections. Violence quickly took to the streets.
“Our supporters were demonstrating peacefully when, suddenly, the police attacked them with tear gas and stun grenades. The government created this violence and now holds us responsible for our supporters being in jail”describes Rumeen Farhana, international relations secretary of the BNP.
More than 10,000 BNP members were arrested and charged with hooliganism and death, including the Party’s general secretary. Some of them claim to have not even participated in the demonstration. The BNP was beheaded, but the ruling party, the Awami League, denies any political persecution.
“The protesters aimed to prevent the holding of elections. And, to do so, vandals and BNP leaders committed terrible acts of violence. They killed a police officer by breaking his helmet against his head. We had to maintain order and repress these criminal acts”explains Biplab Barua, spokesperson for the ruling party.
The opposition decided to boycott this Sunday’s elections. Its absence deprives voters of any option other than that of the ruling party. And the mass arrests send a clear message to voices critical of the government.
On the street, this repression is not talked about openly.
Mohammed Enamul prefers a sports metaphor to describe these elections: “In a game, there have to be two games to play. If you eliminate a team? There is no more game to watch.”
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been in power for 15 years, and she is sure of winning these elections to catapult herself to a fourth consecutive term. A true monopoly of power, estimates Shahdeen Malik, from the Think Tank for Politics and Dialogue, “Young people who were 20 years old in 2010 have known only one leader and one ideology for 15 years. Therefore, they have been forced to believe that that ideology is the correct one.”
One of Sheikh Hasina’s first challenges will be to stop inflation, which exceeds 10% annually, and prepare for the repayment of numerous loans. This last task will be especially difficult, since foreign exchange reserves are already at historic lows.
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