Awami League leaders are perhaps gloating over the sudden additions and subtractions being made in the committees of BNP and its affiliated organisations. They may feel that the weaker their opponents become, the stronger and more popular they will become. But the state of affairs at the grassroots certainly does not support such conjectures.
Due to professional reasons, I often interact with Awami League leaders at various levels. In their personal conversations, they express a lot of grievances and pain. They speak of their anger. Some members of parliament, referring to the recent Azim-Benazir-Aziz fiascos, angrily say that it is not Awami League that is running the government. If Awami League had any say, such incidents would not have occurred.
A major challenge for the government, after the election, was to control the price of essentials. They have failed to do so. The cost of food is spiralling up in leaps and bounds.
And if there has been any serious collapse in the past 15 years, this has been in the banking sector. No matter what plans and ploys it undertakes, the government simply fails to pull the banking sector up. Non-performing loans are on a steady rise. Foreign exchange reserves are plummeting. The budget deficit is being managed by taking loans from foreign and local sources. The businesspersons fear if the government takes excessive loans from local sources, they will be in a fix. They will not be able to avail loans.
Due to all this, the Awami League leaders and activists are not in such a buoyant mood as one would expect them to be after coming to power for the fourth consecutive term. No one imagined that the party would come under so much pressure from within the country and from outside within just a matter of six months.
Firstly, after winning the one-sided election Awami League had imagined they would face no challenge whatsoever. They held monopoly sway in parliament, absolute dominance in the administration. The law enforcement agencies will do nothing outside of their orders. With no other opponent, Awami League is becoming its own adversary.
Prior to the election, the United States had displayed a stern attitude, but they have now ostensibly changed their stance. US officials say they want to leave the past behind and take relations ahead. But then, it must also be discerned whether there is anything else lurking behind these words. Just two days after the US assistant secretary of state Donald Lu spoke of taking bilateral relations forward, the US slapped visa restrictions on the former army chief Aziz Ahmed. This certainly was not very comfortable for the government, that is, Awami League.
In face of the boycott from BNP and its like-minded parties, Awami League took up an innovative strategy to make the election seem competitive. This is not something seen in multi-party democracy. The party would select one candidate and tell others, "You can compete too."
As a fallout from the election, Awami League is now rife with inner strife. The MPs who won the election contesting against the "boat", now consider themselves more powerful that the party. Those who were defeated despite contesting under the "boat" symbol, feel that the party had cheated them.
Seven persons were killed in clashes over the upazila election. Around 1000 were injured. Almost all of them are leaders and activists of Awami League
The democracy that prevails in the country now is totally dependent on the MPs. If anyone is an MP, the local administration will lend him support. If anyone is an MP, the law enforcement agencies will be ready to serve him. If one is an MP, everyone in the upazila parishad, zilla parishad and union parishad will obey him.
It is this mindset that led the MPs, ministers and former ministers to flout the orders from the centre, and field their relatives in the upazila election. The party had said that no family and relations of the ministers and MPs should be fielded in the election. Most of them did not obey and the MPs ensured their relations and persons of their choice won the election. With a few exceptions, MPs rule all over the country.
According to Prothom Alo analysis, ruling party policymakers feel that over 70 per cent of the upazila chairmen are close relatives or associates of the ministers and MPs, which will help the ministers and MPs wield their dominance in the constituencies. Of the election chairmen, 33 are relatives of the present ministers and MPs. Over 300 more winning chairmen are chosen persons of the local ministers and MPs. In all, 350 chairmen are relatives and close persons of the ministers and MPs, constituting around 77 per cent of the total number of upazila chairmen.
Seven persons were killed in clashes over the upazila election. Around 1000 were injured. Almost all of them are leaders and activists of Awami League.
At the moment, the killing of Jhenaidah-4 MP Anwarul Azim alias Anar has put Awami League in a most awkward position. On 13 May he was killed in Kolkata. According to the media, he was killed over a fracas involving gold smuggling. Md Akhteruzzaman alias Shaheen has been named as the mastermind behind the killing. He rented a flat in Kolkata for the purpose and took killers there from Dhaka. So long Awami League has been saying that the party has no liability in this regard.
But Shimul Bhuiyan, accused in the Anwarul Azim murder, in his deposition said that two local Awami League leaders were involved. They are Jhenaidah district Awami League general secretary Saidul Karim alias Mintu and the party's district local relief and social welfare secretary Kazi Kamal alias Babu. Then again, one can't take the deposition of an accused person to be hundred per cent true. This isn't taken as solid proof in the trial process either.
In that sense, the difference between Awami League and BNP is superficial, not integral. Both the parties' constitutions have rules to create leadership through democratic process. But no one follows these rules
Killings within Awami League and its affiliated student organisation due to inner conflict are nothing new. In 1974 seven student leaders were killed in brushfire by members of the rival group. Those who killed the seven student leaders later paraded around the campus demanding justice for the deaths. The main accused in the seven murders, Shafiul Alam Pradhan and a few others were convicted. Later they were released at the mercy of Ziaur Rahman and took up anti-Awami League politics.
Alarming facts have leaked out about some of the officials holding top posts in the administration during Awami League's rule. First of all the massive amount of wealth amassed by the former police chief Benazir Ahmed was revealed. From Bandarban to remote areas in Gopalganj, from Dhaka's upscale areas to Bhawal in Gazipur -- he and his family have property everywhere. They have dozens of flats and plots of land.
Many feel that it was Benazir who used the administration to amass so much wealth. But there needs to be a probe into how many other senior officials in the administration over the past 15 years have used Awami League to build up their wealth. A few years ago the former foreign minister MA Momen quoted a foreign agency report, saying that it was former bureaucrats of the country who siphoned the highest amount of money outside of the country. The names of politicians followed the bureaucrats.
Before Eid, an Awami League leader of the northern region said in anger, the government may be of Awami League, but the administration is not.
Whenever the topic of BNP arises, Awami League says BNP is a party of martial law. It has no democracy. They do not hold regular councils. They form committees through press releases. But even though Awami League holds councils, it should be seen how many of the committees have been formed through the votes of the councillors. Most of the party's city, district and upazila committees are formed on the basis of orders from above. The names of the president and general secretary are disclosed after the councils, but it takes years for the full-fledged committees to be formed.
In that sense, the difference between Awami League and BNP is superficial, not integral. Both the parties' constitutions have rules to create leadership through democratic process. But no one follows these rules. The power to take decisions is given to a single person. Awami League and BNP are strangely similar in this regard.
* Sohrab Hassan is joint editor of Prothom Alo and a poet
* This column appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir