No end to uncertainty in Bangladesh

MUHAMMAD Yunus, the head of Bangladesh’s interim government, has announced that the country will hold elections in the first half of April 2026. By making this announcement, the Nobel laureate and Grameen Bank founder has sought to silence critics and opponents who questioned how interim his administration really was and if he would ever let go of power.

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The questions arose because the interim administration, set up in the days after the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina government, has not only been inept at restoring a measure of order in the country even after 10 months but has also appeared to be taking important policy decisions impacting the country’s foreign policy and security.

The Bangladesh Army, too, questioned the decisions, publicly airing discontent at not being consulted on the move to establish a “humanitarian corridor” from Bangladesh to the Rakhine state in Myanmar, apparently at the prodding of the United Nations. The army had also pressed for an “early and inclusive” election. Yunus tried an age-old gambit adopted by leaders who believe in their own indispensability. He threatened to resign, and, predictably, was persuaded to stay on.

The announcement of elections in April has hardly cleared the air of political uncertainty or suspicions about his intentions. For one, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), the second largest political party in the country after the Awami League, has rejected the timeline, and reiterated its demand for elections before the end of this year. In this, it is on the same side as the army. In a volatile political atmosphere still charged with anger against the Hasina government, the BNP, harassed and suppressed for over a decade, is eyeing a big electoral comeback.

Yunus’ justification for his reluctance to hold polls earlier than next year is that when he took office, he promised to do three things: carry out constitutional, electoral and other institutional reforms through a process of national consensus; provide justice for those who were killed in police firing during the student protests that eventually led to Hasina’s exit; and conduct elections.

The argument is that making the much-needed corrections to a broken political, governance and judicial structure would ensure that the elections did not reproduce the kind of one-party rule and authoritarian slide witnessed during Hasina’s three terms. The view in sections of Bangladesh is that had these reforms been carried out before the 2008 elections, the country would have been spared the political chaos and bloodshed.

Yunus set up six commissions to study each aspect and suggest changes. These commissions have duly submitted their reports. Now, a “national consensus commission” of political parties’ representatives is trying to forge an all-round agreement on the reforms. It is no surprise that the consensus is proving to be elusive.

The BNP, whose political instincts remain sharp despite a decade in the wilderness and its leader Khaleda Zia’s long years in jail or home imprisonment, has said the holding of elections cannot be held ransom to the lack of consensus on the reforms. Aside from the BNP’s own electoral calculations, the concern is that putting off the elections may worsen the chaotic conditions in the country, eventually making the holding of elections impossible.

More pertinently, however, all the talk of reforms and consensus sounds hollow given that the Awami League has been banned, and thus cannot take part in the election. With Hasina and many leaders in her clique living in exile in Delhi, its cadres and supporters being targeted at home, and no effective second rung to speak of, the Awami League is in total disarray.

Yunus may carry out all the reforms he wants, and may even take his time doing that. But any claim of corrections to Bangladesh’s many problems will remain hollow, and their purpose defeated if the Awami League, hollowed out though it is, cannot take part in the elections. Banning the party and keeping it out of the elections can only widen the political and social faultlines. It is a sure path to the repetition of the many blunders committed by Hasina.

Even the reforms themselves, ostensibly to be arrived at by a process of national consensus, would lack that very consensus as the Awami League is not a part of that process. Instead, what is apparent now is an attempt to airbrush the party of Bangladesh’s liberation out of the nation’s past, present and future.

On the other hand is the resurrection of the Jamaat-e-Islami, which collaborated with the Pakistan Army in the atrocities committed in the months before the country’s liberation. The Jamaat was stripped of its registration as a political party and disallowed from participating in the 2013 elections after the Bangladesh Supreme Court under Hasina’s watch ruled that the party’s constitution went against the secular principles of the national constitution. Last month, Jamaat leader ATM Azharul Islam, who was tried and convicted as a collaborationist by the “International Criminal Court” set up by the Hasina government, was acquitted.

While the trials of the Jamaat members were decried at the time as partisan and dubious, and the judicial proceedings as a kangaroo court, the irony is hard to miss: an administration that says it wants to set Bangladesh on the right path is using the same court to try Hasina on charges of corruption and “crimes against humanity” . Her trial, whose outcome is pre-determined, will take place in absentia. India is unlikely to accede to Bangladesh’s demand for her extradition. The issue will worsen relations between the two countries. The Awami League’s only hope now is that the Bangladesh Army will press for and secure its inclusion.

Meanwhile, the Jamaat, a former ally of the BNP, is now confident it can make greater electoral inroads than before, on its own. It is also keen on elections but wants time. Yunus’ April timeline is close to the Jamaat’s own demand that elections should be held in mid-2026, the time that it needs to strengthen its network on the ground. This is also why the party is pushing for local elections first.

As such, the transition to an elected government, whether it happens in April or earlier, is not going to bring political stability in Bangladesh. Sreeradha Datta, who teaches international relations at Jindal Global University, and follows developments in Bangladesh closely, told Frontline in an interview that stability will be elusive until the political culture of that country changes.

The silver lining is that there are people in Bangladesh who remember the liberation story only too well. The home of Awami League founder and father of the nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman can be vandalised and burnt, and his face erased from currency notes. But it is more difficult to erase the memories of killings and rapes following Bangladesh’s March 1971 declaration of independence. This is why the apology proffered by Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman for “past actions” of “party members” is inadequate. This is also why Pakistan’s aim to “normalise” relations with Bangladesh will remain a pipe dream.

Nirupama Subramanian is an independent journalist.