Hasina stays the excessive priestess of Bangladesh’s dynastic democracy | Sheikh Hasina

It has been mentioned that for the previous 15 years, Bangladesh’s elections have been so skewed in favour of the ruling Awami League, they’re sufficient to make North Korea’s Kim Jong Un squirm with envy. An unfair comparability maybe, however Sunday’s outcomes, the place the celebration, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, secured 222 seats out of 300, are sufficient to make even probably the most unbiased amongst us increase a sceptical eyebrow.

However ought to we actually be shocked by what was a foregone conclusion? And what does the consequence imply for the way forward for Bangladesh? On condition that the election was uncontested by the nation’s essential opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Get together (BNP), amid considerations that it could be rigged, and with massive swaths of the 120 million eligible voters abstaining, it’s hardly surprising that the Awami League swept the board. Officers say some 40 % of voters went to the polls, however media studies and analysts recommend the actual determine is probably going no more than 30 %. Both manner, it’s clear that the individuals of Bangladesh voted with their ft.

A glance again on the 2018 elections reminds us that the BNP’s considerations had been not unfounded. On the time, Human Rights Watch and different teams known as for an impartial investigation following allegations of voter intimidation, vote rigging and partisan behaviour by election officers. Added to this, a UK broadcaster filmed a crammed poll field being taken away from a polling station earlier than it had even opened. Little surprise, then, that the BNP feared the identical would occur once more.

Extra lately, on October 28, the huge antigovernment protest that turned violent signalled a powerful and systematic crackdown on dissent forward of the elections. On that day, tons of of 1000’s of opposition supporters demanded Hasina step down and the set up of a impartial caretaker authorities. Tens of 1000’s of protesters, together with senior leaders, had been arrested and thrown into jail following speedy trials. They included those that had not even been concerned within the protests, however as a substitute had circumstances in opposition to them relationship again greater than a decade. Authorities declare they had been cracking down on violence however human rights teams outlined what occurred as “a violent autocratic crackdown forward of the election”.

The federal government denies Sunday’s election was uncontested regardless of the BNP’s boycott, saying 27 events took half, in addition to impartial candidates, and that greater than 100 impartial election observers had been current. However this, although technically true, doesn’t allay considerations. A lot of Sunday’s so-called “independents” are Awami League supporters. Bangladeshi media additionally reported that the celebration intentionally didn’t area any candidates in a number of constituencies, as a substitute making area for its ally, the Jatiya Get together.

The highway to a one-party state has been a gentle one, with Sheikh Hasina – the world’s longest-serving feminine prime minister – being positioned on the helm of the nation for a fourth consecutive time period and, for all intents and functions, unchallenged. Ironic for the daughter of the nation’s founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who, alongside together with her bitter rival, former BNP chief Khaleda Zia, fought so laborious for years for multiparty democracy and an finish to army rule.

That doesn’t downplay the BNP’s personal historical past of oppression and assaults on democracy. Throughout its two-term rule (1991-96 and 2001-06), it was confronted with lots of the accusations presently confronted by the Awami League: corruption, human rights abuses, suppression of opposition teams and extra. What’s extra, the celebration is tarnished with a historical past of being borne out of a army dictatorship: it was based by Zia’s late husband, Ziaur Rahman, a military chief of workers who was president of Bangladesh from 1977 till his assassination in 1981.

The BNP has up to now additionally joined forces with Jamaat-e-Islami – a conservative celebration that didn’t help Bangladesh’s independence in 1971 and has by no means made a lot headway within the poll field. The BNP’s present appearing chairman, Tarique Rahman, is a convicted legal – albeit on expenses his celebration says are politically motived – and dwelling in exile in London. It’s a monitor document that doesn’t bode properly for a celebration determined to regain energy.

But the October protests revealed that the celebration nonetheless has widespread help, and in a rustic the place there’s rising discontent over the federal government’s dealing with of the financial downturn, it’s fairly potential that the BNP would have had a good likelihood of profitable, had the election been genuinely aggressive.

As issues stand, Hasina stays the excessive priestess of Bangladesh’s distinct fashion of dynastic democracy. With a powerful majority in parliament for yet one more time period, her celebration can proceed to push by way of any laws it sees match, with little by the use of checks and balances.

And with any resistance silenced, at the least for now, the bottom is fertile for extra of the sort of human rights abuses the nation already stands accused of. Even when the opposition continues to mobilise itself post-election, Hasina’s safety forces are prone to proceed their crackdown and see to it that dissenting voices pay a heavy worth.

If there’s any stress from outdoors Bangladesh, it’s most definitely to return from the US. Earlier than the election, Washington ramped up its political muscle-flexing with a number of latest visits to Dhaka by senior officers and by imposing visa bans on people it describes as “undermining the democratic course of”.

There was additionally the specter of sanctions. The US and the European Union are the most important importers of Bangladesh’s readymade clothes – an business price $45bn. Pierre Prakash, director of the Worldwide Disaster Group’s Asia Programme, informed me that any restrictions on the sector may inflict additional ache on a inhabitants already reeling from rising meals and gasoline costs.

“It’ll be tough to provide you with sanctions which are efficient and on the identical don’t harm tens of millions of individuals,” he defined. “The overwhelming majority of employees employed by the garment business are ladies, so sanctions may additionally work in opposition to ladies’s empowerment.”

It’s not stunning, then, that US has already issued a post-election assertion stating that it doesn’t imagine the elections had been free and honest, however that it “notes” that the Awami League received. It appears like a volte-face. It is aware of that if it imposes sanctions, not solely may it find yourself punishing frequent Bangladeshis, nevertheless it additionally dangers a dent in its coffers. Shopping for from different sources could enhance its prices marginally, however it’s a further price the US can do with out at a time when the nation has spent billions of {dollars} on army assist to Ukraine and Israel, and People throughout the nation are feeling the pinch of a cost-of-living disaster.

For Bangladesh’s neighbours and allies, the election is much less of a priority. As a one-party state, China is hardly the standard-bearer for democracy. And India, the place there are rising indicators of democratic backsliding and rising autocracy, can be not ready to begin finger-pointing.

The denouncements of this yr’s stage-managed election echo these of 2014 and 2018. Again then, little motion was taken, and as soon as the mud had settled, Hasina was welcomed into the worldwide fold. Admittedly, it was an period when she had the help of a lot of her countryfolk and was credited for turning Bangladesh into one of many fastest-growing economies within the area, combating terrorism and offering shelter for greater than 1,000,000 Rohingya refugees.

Now, although, occasions have modified. Hasina’s reputation has waned, largely as a result of monetary hardships her individuals are going through, but in addition as a result of little doubt is left that she has instrumentalised the state equipment to cling on to energy.

Regardless of this, plainly the worst Hasina can anticipate are restricted sanctions by the US. If that occurs – and it’s nonetheless an “if” – the nation’s beleaguered economic system will undoubtedly be dented additional. However with Chinese language and Indian footprints firmly inside its territory, Western stress is prone to have much less of an impression on Bangladesh than it has up to now. There’s no denying, nonetheless, that whereas it could be enterprise as ordinary for Sheikh Hasina for the subsequent 5 years, will probably be so with out a mandate from her individuals.

The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.