The Awami league should press ahead with its running repairs even as it braces for competition from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and other rivals in the run-up to parliamentary elections
Indications are that the Awami league is trying to act on the lessons it learnt from its massive defeat in the four mayoral elections in Bangladesh on June 15. Thursday afternoon’s meeting between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Jatiya Party chairman HM Ershad, at the former’s Parliament House office, is perhaps the most important of these. Asked what had been discussed, Mr Ershad mentioned the Ghazipur City mayoral election scheduled for July 6 and mode and schedule of the parliamentary elections due in about six months. Without giving a straight answer as to whether his party will support the Awami league-backed candidate at Ghazipur, he seemed to indicate that it would.
Thursday’s meeting was significant. Mr Ershad has been criticising the Government for some time on issues like law and order, violence by Chhatra league, handling of Hefazat-e-Islam and high-profile allegations of governmental corruption. This as well talk of his having met Begum Khaleda Zia in Singapore recently, had caused uneasiness in Awami league circles, as he controls about 10 per cent of Bangladesh’s electoral votes.
Though the Jatiya Party has rejected outright the possibility of any understanding with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ahead of the national polls, and the BNP has trashed reports of his having met Begum Zia during their respective and partially-overlapping visits to Singapore, the Awami league’s presidium member Obaidul Quader, and joint general secretary Jahangir Kabir Nanak, who have been given the important task of identifying the causes of the defeats and draw up its strategy for the next general elections, did well to call on Mr Ershad on June 23 to keep the ties between the two parties in good repair.
Also indicative of the Awami league’s efforts to pull up its socks is the report that it is looking for new candidates in at least 150 of the 300 parliamentary constituencies where the sitting members are accused of graft, not keeping in touch with people of their constituencies or having misbehaved with many of them. The third indication is the seriousness with which it is approaching the Ghazipur mayoral election, assigning more than 60 MPs and several central leaders to work for the candidate it is supporting, Ajmat Ullah Khan. Fifty seven of them, including Mr Amir Hossain Amu, Mr Tofail Ahmed and Sheikh Fazlul Karim Selim, will work in the 57 wards of the city in close contact with party leaders and locals. Four leaders, Mr Abdul Mannan, Mr BM Mojammel Haque, Mr Abu Sayeed Al Mahmud Swapan and Mr Sujit Roy Nandi, will monitor events in four segments into which the city has been divided.
Electoral rules bar Mr Obaidul Quader and Mr Jahangir Kabir Nanak, Ministers besides being party officials, from campaigning directly. They are slated to work from outside the city area, dealing with the grievances and frustrations of the local party leaders. Also, the Awami league has obviously worked hard to persuade Mr Jahangir Alam, the rebel candidate, to withdraw in Mr Khan’s favour.
It remains to be seen whether all this helps. A bad sign for Awami league was the decisive defeat, on June 20, of Mr Amzad Hossen Swapon, whom it supported in the Kaliganj Pourasabha (Municipal Council) mayoral election, by the BNP-backed candidate, Mr lutfor Rahman. Kaliganj is a part of the Ghazipur district where the collapse of Rana Plaza in nearby Savar, which has killed 1,132 persons, has had a serious impact.
Victory in Ghazipur city will be a morale booster the Awami league badly needs. It will, however, not mean victory in the parliamentary elections, just as a defeat will not automatically point the other way. Much will depend on how the party addresses the causes of the defeat of the candidates it backed in the four mayoral elections. Vicious communal campaign by Hefazat-e-Islam and other religious parties and inactivity and sabotage by party supporters were common factors in all cases. These were principally responsible for the defeat of the Awami league-supported candidate, the incumbent mayor, Mr AHM Khairuzzaman liton, in Rajshahi, his outstanding record notwithstanding.
lack of support from Hindus, alienated by the absence of any help from him when they were recently attacked by Islamist elements, and the presence of a Jatiya Party-supported candidate in the fray, contributed to defeating Talukdar Abdul Khaleque in Khulna, who had also lost popularity because of insensitiveness to local grievances and arrogance. Despite his good record, incumbent mayor Shakhawat Hossain Hiron, had a tough fight on hand in Barisal, traditionally a BNP stronghold. The presence of a rebel candidate and lack involvement of senior party leaders, who did not even vote for him, had further eroded his support as had his proneness to high-handedness. Among other things, Mr Badar Uddin Ahmed Kamran, owed his defeat in Sylhet to the bulk of Hindus, Buddhists and Christians voting against him because he had allegedly done little to prevent Bangladesh Chhatra and Jubo league activists from grabbing minority-owned land.
Allegations of corruption in the implementation of the Padma Bridge project, share market and Sonali Bank-Hall Mark loan scandals, and activities of sections of Chhatra and Jubo league elements had also cost votes, as had what many perceived as the Government’s persecution of Mr Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. To regain its political initiative, the Awami league must take more than token steps against Ministers involved in corruption. It must reassure the Hindus, for whom it has done an enormous amount, occasional aberrant acts of its supporters notwithstanding, of continued protection, and counter the Hefazat’s vicious propaganda of its being anti-Islam, making a special effort to making women aware of the implications of the latter’s 13-point demand which bears the Taliban’s unmistakeable imprimatur.
Success in a quick removal of the United States’s suspension of the Generalised System of Preference status to Bangladesh will help. Finally, the Awami league must attempt a reconciliation with Mr Yunus immediately. Besides the goodwill he commands at home and abroad, the millions of direct beneficiaries of the Grameen Bank’s schemes and their relatives constitute a significant chunk of votes, which the party can ill-afford to lose. It can hardly ignore the implications of BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir’s meeting with Mr Yunus in Dhaka on Thursday and his warning to the Government not to interfere with the structure and functioning of the Grameen Bank.
(The accompanying visual is of Bangladesh Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina with Jatiya Party chairman HM Ershad (R))