Warring politicians endanger the country
THE map of the Muslim world is littered with places for Western policymakers to worry about. Bangladesh is becoming one of the most alarming of the lot. At the weekend its young democracy descended into a Punch and Judy show of backbiting and violence between two parties led by women who cannot stand the sight of each other.
But this is no comic sideshow. The feud is being fought in blood on the streets of a country with nearly 150m people, 90% of them Muslims, and most of them desperately poor.
The political system is at risk of breakdown. The winners, in the short term, might be ambitious soldiers itching to say “I told you so” about corrupt, incompetent civilians.
In the long run, the failure of mainstream politics must benefit the extremist fringe. In Bangladesh that fringe is peopled with Islamists who think the Taliban and al-Qaeda to be jolly decent chaps.
The latest bout of violence was provoked, ironically, by a mechanism intended as a solution to the problem of confrontational two-party politics. At the end of every government’s five-year term, it hands over power for three months to a “neutral” caretaker to oversee elections.
This time, the main opposition, the Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina Wajed, cried foul, fearing that the two proposed caretakers would prove anything but neutral: President Iajuddin Ahmed has taken on the job, after a former chief justice withdrew. On the streets, supporters of the League fought the police and other backers of the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), whose coalition government has just passed its sell-by date. Two dozen people have been killed already and hundreds injured.
The president may manage to placate the League. But unless the two sides show an unexpected willingness to compromise, the elections, due in January, are in jeopardy. The army, rumoured at the weekend to be on the point of stepping in, may have pulled back from that particular brink. But sooner or later some impatient general will be tempted to say that enough is enough, and to set about restoring the military dictatorship that Mrs Zia and Sheikh Hasina helped overthrow in 1990.
Both women are to be blamed for this sorry mess―and especially Ms Zia. Her government has indeed tried to rig the election, or, at least, to give itself an unfair chance. It has never properly investigated the bombing in August 2004 of an Awami League rally, where Sheikh Hasina nearly died, and several of her colleagues were less lucky. To retain the loyalty of its Islamist coalition partners, it has connived in the spread of violent extremism. It even denied the very existence of some of the groups responsible, until long after they had perpetrated one of the most elaborate terrorist attacks ever―the explosion, in the space of about one hour in August 2005, of nearly 500 small bombs in 63 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts.
But nor has the League shown much commitment to democratic politics. It has scorned parliament, and, like the BNP, it has used thugs to do its dirty work. Its weapon of choice is the general strike, shutting the country down with tiresome regularity.
If there is an argument now for optimism, it stems not from the League’s moderation, but from its fear of military intervention, and its hopes for a winner-takes-all electoral victory. The BNP has split―and, however much they try to fix elections, incumbent governments in Bangladesh always lose.
Bangladesh’s voters are for the most part a tolerant bunch with surprisingly astute political judgment. They are not easily bullied or hoodwinked. But their disillusionment with the main parties has created a vacuum, which the Islamists are trying to fill. Some are harmless charitable workers. Some have dangerously illiberal social views. A few are violent jihadists. Bangladesh is still a long way from becoming a hardline Islamic state, but its secular rulers are doing their best to give secularism a bad name.
