Manash Ghosh |Yunus’ Sham Vote Set To Worsen Chaos in B’desh

Bangladesh’s interim government head Muhammad Yunus has mired the coming February 12 election in such controversies and confusion that it will, instead of restoring peace and political order, will further aggravate the current violence, lawlessness and political instability that has gripped the nation since Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in August 2024.

That Mr Yunus is no American panacea for Bangladesh’s ills has been proven yet again by the large-scale anti-government violence that rocked Dhaka ahead of the general election over “gross misgovernance”.

The first reason for this bedlam is that the election will be far from inclusive since Bangladesh’s biggest and oldest political party, the Awami League, has unjustifiably been kept out of it. While barring the Awami League from the elections was due to Mr Yunus’ spite for Hasina, Western democracies too forced his hand to keep the party out of the race as they always harboured a strong anti-Awami League bias since 1971. They, including the human rights groups, turned a blind eye towards the gross human rights violation that the Yunus government had committed against leaders of the Awami League and its supporters, and minority and human rights bodies even though there was rabid outrage when similar abuses were inflicted on the Opposition during Hasina’s rule. For instance, Hasina’s water resources minister, 86-year-old Ramesh Sen, was imprisoned on Mr Yunus’ orders and left to die in his prison cell, with medical treatment denied to him despite suffering from chronic diseases. Hasina’s industries minister Nurul Majid too was denied treatment in jail and was taken to hospital in handcuffs only when his condition became precarious.

Secondly, in the name of holding the 13th parliamentary polls, Mr Yunus will be orchestrating a charade on voters as the real purpose is to legitimise his illegal rule through a referendum that will seek to indefinitely prolong his stewardship of the country’s governance.

Thirdly, he wants to replace the Awami League drafted muktijudhdho “inspired” 1972 Constitution with the “ideals of the July-August jihadi revolution”, so that the US-Pakistani backed Islamic coalition forces that came to power after Hasina’s ouster can have unrivalled sway over national politics and governance.

Naturally, Mr Yunus is attaching more importance to the referendum than the parliamentary vote as the former will decide his political fate, even though Bangladesh has never held simultaneous elections and a referendum on the same day. Unfortunately, though, the country does have a history of conducting rigged referendums: first undertaken by military ruler Gen. Zia-ur Rahman in 1977, followed by Lt. Gen. H.M. Ershad eight years later. Both undertook this exercise to legitimise their military takeover by seeking a “yes” vote. In both cases they had polled an overwhelming 90 per cent-plus votes in their favour.

This is the first time that the large Bangladeshi diaspora abroad (numbering over a crore, of which almost two-thirds are voting through postal ballot) will decide its outcome. The referendum ballot will have a set of four questions, which are tailormade to suit the political ambitions of Muhammad Yunus, who wants to become President. The referendum will not only seek to curb the powers of the Prime Minister and enhance those of the President, but also bring about significant changes which will amount to total rejection of the 1972 Constitution, which was based on the ideals of the 1971 Liberation War. Some changes have been broached on the lines of Pakistan’s “guided” democracy. Moreover, the referendum has become highly controversial as rural voters remain clueless about what they would be asked to vote for or against.

That the referendum will be no different from previous rigged exercises is borne out by the fact that about 6,000 postal ballots with “yes” tick marks were found dumped in bins in Qatar, Oman and Dubai recently. The Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) has a strong organisational presence in Gulf countries, where the concentration of the Bangladeshi diaspora abroad is the largest. Another reason that is helping Mr Yunus to rig the referendum is that all parties in this exercise favour casting the “yes” vote. Whatever initial opposition the BNP had put up against holding of the referendum for bringing about constitutional changes has given way to acquiescence.

What is more, there is no hide-and-seek about open American and British support for the Jamaat, as one Dhaka-based US diplomat, during his recent interaction with local journalists, brazenly praised this Islamist party on how it, had over the years, moderated its staunch stand on religious, social and political issues and was no longer the fundamentalist party of yore.

Equally significant is that the Dhaka-based British high commissioner flew to New Delhi to convince the Narendra Modi government it would be wise for India to dump Hasina and support Jamaat as it now represented the tenets of moderate Islam. Peter Haas, the previous US envoy who had helped Jamaat strategise its terror campaign to put the JeI in the driver’s seat for ousting Hasina, is currently posted in Bangladesh as the country head of an US energy company and maintains close liaison with Mr Yunus, acting as his adviser and also of the Jamaat student leaders.

Many of the nation’s intelligentsia say the Awami League’s fate awaits that of the Muslim League -- after February 12 it will become politically irrelevant. But how important the Awami League is in the country’s body politic is evident from the fact that the two main contenders in the poll, BNP and Jamaat, are vying with one another in winning over Awami League voters.

Both parties are strategising how best each can corner a chunk of the 35-40 per cent Awami League votes so that only one is the clear winner. Naturally, inducements and freebies are being offered for this purpose, which makes a mockery of keeping the Awami League out of the polls. After Ramesh Sen’s death, BNP secretary-general Mirza Alamgir visited his house to plead with the Awami League, saying if they helped him to get elected, he would withdraw all cases filed by the Yunus regime.

The coming poll is being described by BNP leaders as a contest between twin brothers born of the womb of the same mother. Since both parties are natural allies, whichever party wins makes little difference. The US and European Union envoys in Dhaka are holding intense discussions among themselves and with BNP and JeI leaders as they favour formation of a national government comprising both parties as, according to them, it would be well nigh impossible for any of the two elected parties to come to grips single handedly with the variety of complex problems that will confront post-poll Bangladesh.

Manash Ghosh is a veteran journalist who had covered the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war, and is the author of several books including, most recently, Mujib’s Blunders: The Power and the Plot Behind His Killing