From: Subject: Opposition Politics in Bangladesh: Changing Strategies & Tactics? Date: Saturday, September 25, 1999 1:34 AM [THE DAILY STAR, September 23, 1999] OPPOSITION POLITICS CHANGING STRATEGIES & TACTICS? M. Rashiduzzaman The recent BNP-led anti-government unrest that shook the nation with violence, death, collateral damages, beatings, arrests, injuries, and running battles between the police and agitators, brings at least two substantive inferences to my mind. First, politically speaking, the Awami League government is worse off than it had been before that street confrontation with its antagonists. Secondly, and more importantly, Khaleda Zia's opposition alliance is making fresh strategic moves to counter the ruling Awami League's array of tactics including the use of police and armed activists to contain anti- government dissent and protest. The 60-hour hartal that paralyzed public life in its wake has undeniably punched fatal holes in the Awami League's vocabulary of pride. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's mindset that her political rivals did not have the craft or muscle power to organize street protest is also shaken. The deliberate disruption of the opposition's sit-down protest and Khaleda's public meeting allegedly by the ruling party's bomb-throwing hoodlums and indiscriminate police actions was the catalyst for the BNP-led retaliatory strike for three days. Now the opposition-inspired long hartal has become a credible political weapon for the BNP and its allies who will escalate its use against the ruling Awami League in the future. In a show of self-confidence, the opposition is planning a "Dhaka Chalo" (Dhaka march) agitation in November when the BNP and its allies expect hundreds of thousands of people assembling and demonstrating in the nation's capital. Evidently, they want to create enough pressure so that Hasina is compelled to step down handing over power to a caretaker government for conducting a new election. More to the point, the opposition politicians of different stripes are descending into a protracted and bitter confrontation, potentially dangerous for the country unless moderated by accommodations between the two sides that is not likely to come by. During her journey through power, Sheikh Hasina has been showered with a plethora of complaints that the Awami League in office is rediscovering the thrill of one party dominance. The critics are insisting that the Awami League government wants to impose "one party rule" under a multi-party garb. Newspaper reporters confirmed that the police cordoned off the BNP offices to prevent the opposition leaders from joining their processions, meetings and picketing during the most recent strikes. More damaging is the accusation that the Awami League has also been orchestrating police actions with its armed activists to thwart even ordinarily peaceful demonstrations and assemblies. The seemingly well planned anti-hartal measures that the government applied recently and the foreboding of what might come in the future convinced the BNP and its partners that their very political survival depends on continuing protest and demonstration. We may debate the adverse fallout of frequent political unrest and shutdown, but there seems to be no farewell to hartal in Bangladesh, not in the near future! The allegations of government sponsored violence and repression, denial of due process, denigration, humiliation, intimidation, contrived cases and harassment of the opposition leaders and their upholders, well publicized as they are, do not deserve any repetition here. Even the judiciary is under attack by Prime Minister Hasina and her Home Minister for granting bail to the political workers suspected of wrongdoing! While Hasina's election commitment to abandon the Special Powers Act remains unfulfilled, the Awami League government recently proposed the new Public Security Act 1999 that would authorize summary trial for some offences without any bail or appeal. Once the bill becomes a law, the opposition fears that it will be used against its supporters. Besides the BNP complaints of outright coercive measures, the opposition is also under subtler but no less serious political pressure that the BNP-led alliance cannot afford to take lightly! "Transit to India", a controversial issue, has been characterized as the Awami League government's capitulation to India's security needs. It has become a rallying cry for those who oppose the Awami League government, but what we are watching is a nation already divided on several fronts will polarize even further. Prime Minister Hasina did not formally announce it, but the first shots of the millennial election seems to have already been fired! It is alleged that the 1973 politically recruited civil servants and the recently inducted police officers are already posted in sensitive positions from where they might help the Awami League win the Upazila and four Municipal elections, and eventually facilitate the party's reelection to office. The opposition is convinced and deeply disturbed that the ruling party, with help from segments of the bureaucracy, police, pro-establishment newspapers, loyal intellectuals, and the Mastans, would rig the future elections. It is doubtful if the BNP-led alliance can mobilize enough resources to neutralize those forces assumed to be working for the ruling party. The parliamentary stalemate characterized by walkouts and boycotts and the conspicuous absence of any meaningful inter-party dialogue inside or outside the national parliament is also well known. Now the opposition's resignation from the Parliament is possibly imminent, another decisive step to isolate the government facing impending political movements. Khaleda recently told a delegation of business leaders that she was compelled to call for shut down since the government did not allow her to hold rallies, and moreover, the Awami League regime unleashed a "reign of terror" on her party and her allies. Now there is another dilemma for her and the allies - to participate or not to participate in the local elections. The Awami League government's decision to go ahead with the Upazila and the four City Corporation elections is filled with trapdoors for the opposition that has been pressing for an early national election. The opposition alliance could be damned with or without participation in the local government polls. The government insists that it was a legal obligation to hold those local elections by the specified dates evidently before the national parliamentary poll, yet to be announced. But the BNP and its allies look upon the local government contest as a step in jeopardy unless supervised by an impartial authority, and surely not by the present Election Commissioner. However, except for political accommodation with the opposition, the Awami League government would have no legal obligation to postpone the local polls until the next Sangshad election. Although the local institutional elections are traditionally held on non-partisan basis, the Awami League expects to gain some political mileage from it for restoring the Upazila system that the BNP scrapped in 1991. If the Awami League controls the four Municipal Corporations, it will give additional prestige to the party in those areas. But if the opposite is true, the Awami League's electoral fortunes may suffer a setback in the next national election. Speculation is growing that the Awami League is already hesitant to hold Dhaka Municipal election before the national poll. It will be an advantage for Hasina if the opposition shifts the present political trajectory and fritters its energy by contesting the Upazila and Municipal elections. Under the prevailing circumstances, however, the opposition leaders consider it more appropriate to invest their resources in the anti-government campaign that might swing a national victory for them. The unpopularity of the Awami League government has perceptively increased in the last few months, and Hasina's policies, domestic and international, are under attack. Khaleda wants to strike down the Awami League regime at its weakest moment. That will not be a piece of cake for the opposition although Hasina's embattled leadership opens an window of opportunity to change the present government. According to some opposition leaders, the moment of that reckoning has arrived! Meanwhile, the BNP's decision not to contest the local government election may create some dissension among the party's local supporters who wanted sway over (local) resources through the new Upazila system. The Upazila and Municipal election issue might also adversely affect the relationship between the BNP and its opposition partners if some of them would go for the local polls. It is often difficult to reconcile the local leaders' aspirations with the national political expectations. However, the BNP's ultimate political fate will not hinge on the local government contests. Nor will the anticipated government hold in the opposition-boycotted local elections be an unmixed blessing for the Awami League. Hunkered down behind the protective fences of local government laws, it will be Hasina's turn to aggravate a political stalemate by holding the Upazila and Municipal elections mostly shunned by the opposition. If the past is any guide to the future, local government polls alone will not decide the future Bangladesh national politics. Without opposition participation and a rising political campaign against it, the Upazila election and the new institutional arrangement generated by it will be a minority sport! No matter how many Upazila Chairmen claim to be Awami Leaguers, they may become the targets of local political tumult, and the city-based agitation may spread in the rural areas - an ominous prospect while the rural community is deeply split along personal, factional and partisan lines. Some of the gruesome political murders have been taking place in the smaller towns in Bangladesh! Opposition-driven unrest, when it becomes a routine episode, erodes the quality of life. No doubt about it. But when the ruling party ignores the opposition leaders without a proven track of hartal, and when the ruling regime-supported goons assault the generally peaceful demonstrators, the forces of compromise fall apart, and constitutional politics becomes more of an academic thinking. Still, the opposition cannot use hartal as a game of tit for tat or an instantly gratifying revenge machine against the ruling party. Spare the ordinary people's discomfort by disciplined and peaceful protests. But it's a tall order; the struggle for power usually knows no limits! Public suffering unleashed by unrest and shutdowns is a double-edged sword - it can backfire on the agitators as well as on the government establishment unless they search for a give and take to avoid open challenge. The recent unrest triggered by the attempted sit-down demonstration before the government offices has brought criticism for the government as well as the opposition but the frenzied retaliation (caught in photographs) by the ruling party did not escape censure from non- partisan beholders and international observers. Numerous watchers including the donor countries' representatives are worried about hartal becoming a daily offensive and they are urging Prime Minister Hasina to open dialogue with the leaders of the opposition. It has been reported that the BNP leaders have been lobbying the foreign embassies in Dhaka about the provocation and harsh treatment that they received from the ruling party while initiating a peaceful protest in front of the Bangladesh Secretariat. The BNP along with its political partners will internationalize the Awami League government's treatment of democratic dissent in general, and the recent disruption of the opposition protests. Former US House of Representative Speaker Tip O'Neil used to say, "All politics is local", but now most "local" politics, especially in the developing countries, is global! The BNP leaders and their political allies announced that the 3-day strike was only the beginning of their one-point movement - a euphemism for oust-the-government agitation. In response, Home Minister Mohammad Nasim has thrown the gauntlet to the opposition leader: "Khaleda, you please announce a date.....We will face you in the streets without the police!" One BNP firebrand retorted: "We have not even started yet!" Such pompous bellicose rhetoric is an assault on political decorum, and when such vitriolic is tossed around, only the unfortunate cycle of violent unrest prevails. The Awami League mostly defines itself as the party that has been victimized in the past, and there is some validity to this claim, but whenever it has been in power, it has not hesitated to victimize its dissenters! Sadly, the Awami League regime failed to give to others that they had demanded for themselves while struggling in the opposition. So far, the BNP's agitation strategy is not very different from what was followed by the Awami League in its anti-government campaign in 1995-96 - first short hartals, duel with police, and a gradual escalation reaching a near-rebellion outburst. The incremental approach has some tactical merit, but the circumstances are not identical, and may not produce the same results. Some hartals never ignite fire, and in politics, success is always relative. In 1999 Khaleda cannot swim in the same water where Hasina had swum in 1996! When the chips are down, desperate minds may switch for desperate means. The BNP-led opposition cannot expect a sustained public sympathy if it exceeds the tolerable norms of democratic dissent and mass mobilization that should avoid bodily harm to people, armed insurrection, and destruction of public and private properties and a bureaucratic rebellion that we woefully watched in the past. The BNP- led agitation need not be a vengeful Xerox-copy of what the Awami League did to bring down Khaleda Zia's government in 1996! The author teaches Political Science at Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey, USA [Reprinted from The Daily Star, September 23, 1999 for wider dissemination] Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.