AL to go tough with BNP after Khaleda verdicts

Ruling Bangladesh Awami League (AL) is likely to once again go tough with its arch enemy Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) after the verdicts in graft cases against its chairperson Khaleda Zia are pronounced.

The ruling party insiders said the party would also start preparing for the 11th parliamentary elections after the verdict as the trial of the cases are at a final stage.

AL senior leaders said they think Khaleda and her son Tarique Rahman, also the BNP senior vice chairman, would not be able to avoid conviction in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case and that’s why the party will remain softer towards BNP until the verdict.

The ruling party has planned to resist any move of the BNP to take to the streets after the verdict.

Party insiders said the AL wants by any means to ensure victory in the next general elections scheduled to be held late 2018.

The party thinks that the trial of the two top leaders of its arch rival BNP -Khaleda and Tarique - will be completed before the elections and then it will concentrate on the elections.

The ruling party thinks that although Khaleda would be able to file an appeal against the verdict if she is convicted, her son Tarique wouldn’t as he is a “fugitive” and it would do everything needed to make the verdict credible to all.

AL leaders said the party has now taken up a strategy of giving its rival some space for political programmes, albeit on a small scale, to make people think that the politics is taking its own course and the law its own.

“Khaleda’s case is totally different from politics. There is no scope to mix these two things together. The law takes it own course and none can interfere in the course of law,” AL presidium member Kazi Zafar Ullah told Prothom Alo.

He said the BNP is preparing for joining the next polls. “This is positive. There is no alternative to it in politics.”

Several leaders of the ruling party said the crisis over the 16th amendment annulment verdict and the resignation of the chief justice had put the ruling party in some sort of difficulty.

In order to make people feel that the situation was normal, the party had avoided putting pressure on BNP and that’s why BNP could organise public gatherings during Khaleda’s visit to Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar and could organise a public rally at Suhrawardy Udyan of the capital.

Party insiders said the ruling party may not allow BNP to organise political programmes like a long march, road march or roadside rallies if it announces such programmes in future.

A senior AL leader on condition of anonymity said Khaleda might be sent to jail for a brief period if she is convicted and then BNP would try to take to the streets.

He said the government would get grounds to rein in BNP’s street agitation with a firm hand if BNP’s programmes turn violent.

AL insiders said party chief Sheikh Hasina has engaged several agencies to survey her party’s popularity, with the next general elections in view. The outcome of some of the surveys is not positive.

The surveys found the position of many ministers and MPs weak in their constituencies.

In order to assess how the party would face the BNP against this backdrop, the party is weighing its strength at the grassroots.

When contacted, Citizens’ for Good Governance (Shujan) secretary Badiul Alam Majumdar said he saw a positive change in political atmosphere.

“But if you want to make this change sustainable, the mistrust and the lack of confidence between the two rival political parties over the next general elections must be removed fast,” he noted.

He said if all the political parties reach a consensus on the next national polls, other issues will not matter.

Former prime minister Khaleda Zia has been accused in five graft cases and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed all of the five cases during the military-backed emergency government from 2007 to 2008. All the cases are under trial now.

Besides, Khaleda has been accused in several cases on charges of sabotage during the current and immediate-past AL governments.

Of the cases, the trial of Khaleda in Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust graft cases is at final stage and Tarique Rahman is also accused in one of these two cases.

Tarique is also accused in the 21 August grenade attack case which is also at a final stage.

Besides, the High Court in 2016 cancelled the verdict of a trial court which acquitted Tarique of a money-laundering case and sentenced him to seven years in jail and fined him with Tk 200 million.

The BNP senior vice chairman did not file any appeal against this verdict and he is absconding.

An AL policymaker told Prothom Alo that it is almost certain that Tarique Rahman would not be able to take part in the next polls as he is convicted in graft cases.

He said the Zia dynasty would fall in a trouble if Khaleda is convicted in Zia Orphanage Trust and Zia Charitable Trust graft cases and if this can be projected among the people widely.

He said there is little possibility of Khaleda being disqualified in the election as the election would be held before the completion of the final trial process in the higher court.

The AL government is, however, planning to enact a law stipulating a provision that one will be disqualified only if he or she is convicted in the trial court.

When contacted, Dhaka University’s former vice chancellor and political scientist Emajuddin Ahamed said in a parliamentary democracy, the parliament is dissolved before the general elections to pave the way for a level playing field for all and the trials of candidates are kept suspended.

He said the cases against Khaleda were filed during the last military-propelled caretaker government. Such cases were filed against prime minister Sheikh Hasina at that time too, but those were withdrawn.

“We can see a kind of message in Khaleda’s recent speeches that she wants to bring an end to the rivalry. If prime minister Sheikh Hasina too takes a liberal position, it will bring good to democratic atmosphere in the country,” noted the political scientist.  

*The article originally published in Prothom Alo print edition has been rewritten in English by Abu Taib Ahmed