Everyone at the moment feels that BNP will win an absolute majority in the next election and form the government. Such thoughts have perhaps given rise to a sort of elation among BNP's leaders and activists, and anger among its opposition.
But reality is that politics is unlikely to be all that easy for BNP. Even its hope of coming to power through a credible and peaceful election may not be so easily attained. Let's look into the crises BNP might face in this context.
BNP’s main crisis at the moment is its popularity. In the absence of the Awami League, BNP appears to be the largest party in the country. This very popularity is enough to create pressure on BNP. In other words, since BNP is a major party, public expectations from it are also very high. Ernesto Laclau’s concept of “populist demands” may clarify things further.
BNP is now becoming an "empty signifier," a symbol into which various groups project their own hopes and aspirations. And this very burden of expectation is being used by its opponents as a political weapon. This is quite natural in politics. As a result, BNP is having to shoulder, as a party, the burden of any wrongdoing by any of its leaders. In the last nine months, BNP has expelled more than 4,000 leaders and activists for violating party discipline.
We really do not know much about what measures other parties are taking against their workers who violate discipline. But BNP's opponents have quite successfully managed to project that it is BNP men who are responsible for all the wrongdoings and misdeeds in the country (undoubtedly many BNP men are involve in misdeeds, but most of the politics is more about tarring them, than bringing them under the law).
BNP’s second crisis is that the party itself is unsure which of its leaders actually enjoy genuine public support.
It may seem surprising, but let’s think about it this way: between 2014 and 2024, BNP did not participate in two out of three elections, due to widespread rigging. As a result, just as in Awami League, where so-called “hybrid” leaders have bought nominations and become MPs, BNP leadership has also been unable to gauge how much public support any individual BNP leader actually commands. The only credible way to determine that is through elections. So what has this led to?
Once in power, the BNP will have to deal with the strong online presence of Jamaat and NCP, the street power of the Islamists, and international pressure from Awami League’s allies. How BNP navigates this three-pronged pressure, will determine its future
This has resulted in the formation of "power blocks" at all levels within the BNP -- leaders who believe they have public support, but for whom there is no electoral data to prove or disprove that belief. As a consequence, when these small internal power blocks exert pressure on the central leadership to advance their own agendas, the leadership cannot make decisions based on the actual public backing of these factions because the data doesn’t exist. They are then forced to make decisions based on personal loyalty instead.
This process weakens the party and increases the tendency to bypass the constitution and fuel internal power struggles. The reality is that if no national election is held, this trend will intensify and the BNP will suffer severely. BNP’s opponents are well aware of this. In other words, it is only natural that the opposition will try to politically exploit this weakness by repeatedly pushing to delay elections.
The third major problem for BNP is its pragmatic stance on reforms. To understand this issue, one must grasp Machiavellian political realism. Since BNP aims to come to power, the responsibility of implementing reforms will ultimately fall on them. On the other hand, their opponents who broadly agree on most reform agendas (with some minor disagreements), do not expect to be in power anytime soon and therefore have little to lose at the moment.
In fact, if all reforms are implemented, they stand to gain significant influence as the opposition, without having to bear the burden of governance failures, which the BNP will have to shoulder. From the BNP’s perspective, some reform proposals seem designed in such a way that, if implemented, the next elected government would be forced to operate with limited power, such as in the case of forming the NCC (National Constitutional Council). And this is where politics comes into play.
Now, if the BNP vetoes many of the reforms and pushes hard for elections, other parties, such as Jamaat, NCP, AB Party, the group led by the Pir of Char Monai, and other Islamic groups, may jointly boycott the election and even threaten to resist it. In that case, the BNP would find itself with very limited options.
If the Islamic groups boycott the election, will BNP contest in the election alone? Again, if these blocs try to resist the election, will the government use to force hold the election? The government is not likely to do that. That would be the worst case scenario. That is not likely to happen, though there are certain signs in that direction. The bottom line is, the opposition has blackmail weapons which BNP does not. That is reality. And that is why BNP is having to make the most compromises. Rather than populist rhetoric, the matter much been viewed from a purely political angle.
Another crisis facing BNP is the absence of any governing memory since 2006. To elaborate further, whenever a political party forms a government, it gains experience through the act of governing, and this process creates a kind of "governing memory" within the party. This memory helps build a competent group within the party, which is crucial for effective governance.
But since 2006, almost 19 years now, BNP has not developed any governing memory. Meanwhile, the realities of state governance have significantly changed.
In this new reality, any structurally weak government that may emerge without governing memory will face serious challenges to its success. If all the proposed constitutional reforms are accepted for now, we will undoubtedly get a weak government in the coming days, one that will constantly face obstruction from the opposition. In our country’s politics, the blame for any failure always falls on the government; the opposition bears no responsibility. That is why opposition politics here is easier.
Another crisis for the BNP is the discontented youth. There are frustrated young people all around us. They do not get what they want, and do not want what they get. This conflict between their wants and reality has sparked a fire within them, which played a central role during the July movement. That fire is still there and is likely to grow in the future, because the willingness to take responsibility has not increased, yet public expectations have. These expectations pose as the greatest risk for BNP if it comes to power.
Once in power, the BNP will have to deal with the strong online presence of Jamaat and NCP, the street power of the Islamists, and international pressure from Awami League’s allies. How BNP navigates this three-pronged pressure, will determine its future. The reality is, once in government, BNP will not receive any support from its former allies who are now in the opposition. First and foremost, BNP will have to confront the resurgence of political Islam. Will BNP be able to handle that?
Much of BNP’s political future will depend on how it deals with these five crises. If BNP wants to govern the country for at least the next ten years with public mandate, it has no choice but to modernise the party.
On the other hand, there are some crises that the BNP can do little about other than exercise patience, such as if the opposition decides to boycott the election. In truth, there are no easy solutions to these crises. That is why the future of BNP’s politics is not likely to be easy in any way. The question is, how prepared is BNP?
* Asif Bin Ali is currently a doctoral fellow at Georgia State University.
* The opinions expressed are the author's own.