Kamran Reza Chowdhury/Dhaka
With its leaders in jail or fleeing from justice, the party that led Bangladesh to independence and ruled for 15 consecutive years faces an existential crisis after a student uprising toppled the autocratic prime minister in August, analysts say.
Students, who have since carried on with street protests, and some smaller political parties have demanded that the Awami League party be banned over the estimated 750 deaths linked to pro-democracy demonstrations that began in July and led to the fall of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Last week, the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus banned the Chhatra League, Awami’s student wing, whose members took part in violence that targeted students protesting against the Hasina government.
Now, there are questions about whether the transitional government will follow suit by banning Awami and preventing it from participating in elections. Leaders of the student movement that toppled Hasina are serving in the Yunus government.
Since Yunus took office on Aug. 8, he has promised to reform state institutions and prepare the country for free and fair polls. Hasina, who fled to India after resigning three days earlier, and her party had been accused of rigging recent general elections in Awami’s favor.
“Awami League is a 75-year-old party in Bangladesh. Sounds unbelievable but true: The Awami League faces charges of genocide,” Sabbir Ahmed, a political science professor at Dhaka University, told BenarNews.
About 20 party members have been ordered to appear before the nation’s International Crimes Tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity and genocide, according to media reports.
Hasina is the daughter of Shiekh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding president, who had led it to break free from Pakistan, whose forces were accused of committing genocide during the war of independence in 1971.
The Awami party was founded in 1949, when Bangladesh was then known as East Pakistan.
“The party chief [Hasina] hurriedly fled to India, making hundreds of thousands of her party leaders vulnerable,” Ahmed said.
Hasnat Abdullah,coordinator of the Students Movement Against Discrimination, which had spearheaded the anti-Hasina uprising, called for the tribunal to put party members on trial. He also said Awami must be banned.
Ahmed, the analyst, expects party leaders to remain and to organize online.
“The Chhatra League has been banned, but, I think, Awami League will not be banned, and it will stage a comeback, although slowly. They would take part in the upcoming elections – if they remain in the electoral political system, someday they will return,” he said.
“Awami League is a registered political party. There is no legal bar against conducting political activities, though their leaders have gone into hiding. The senior leaders will, now, utilize the online platform and the social media to organize themselves,” Ahmed said.
An Awami League official who has been in hiding because he faces arrest over violence linked to the protests promised that his party would be back.
“The Awami League is a party having leaders and supporters even at every hamlet of the country. You will see we must return to politics, we are just waiting for an opportune time,” Joint Secretary Bahauddin Nasim told BenarNews.
“I do not claim that we made no mistakes. We are learning from our mistakes. We will present a reform of the party,” he said. “If they ban Awami League, it will be more popular.”
Another party member took a more hardline stance.
Awami League presidium member Jahangir Kabir Nanak went on Facebook on Friday to declare that Hasina was still prime minister. He warned that the Awami League would one day try Yunus’ “illegal” government.
‘Their future is not bright’
According to another analyst, Bangladeshis had largely been sympathetic to the Awami League and Hasina since the August 1975 assassination of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. But that changed when her government became more autocratic.
“[T]his time, people are highly hostile to Awami League for 15 years of authoritarian rule. Their future is not bright,” Md. Shamsul Alam, a professor of government and politics at Jahangirnagar University, told BenarNews.
“The way party chief Sheikh Hasina abruptly fled to India without considering the safety of hundreds of thousands of her leaders and workers cannot be substantiated by any definition of leadership,” he said.
He noted that the Awami League was split into three factions following Rahman’s assassination and in 2008, senior party members proposed dropping Hasina from her leadership role.
“But they overcame all hurdles in the past. This time, the crisis is existential as the party leaders are facing trials for misdeeds. This is difficult for them to overcome soon,” he said.
Meanwhile, officials from BNP, the top opposition party during Hasina’s rule, and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, expressed concern about possible future consequences.
“The Awami League leaders must face trial for massacres and other crimes. But Awami League must not be banned,” Zahir Uddin Swapon, chief spokesman for the BNP, told BenarNews.
“We have learned from the Awami League what consequences would await if the state authority were used in politics,” he said. “We want the Awami League to be tried by popular judgment through votes.”
Matiur Rahman Akanda, the publicity secretary of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, agreed with Swapon.
“The people will decide about the Awami League for destroying the country’s democracy,” he said.
Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Used with the permission of BenarNews.
