National election: A long walk ahead for BNP

MNA Feature Desk: The politics of Bangladesh has become a bi-polar dynamics for the last three decades. Current ruling party Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are considered to be the two superpowers of Bangladeshi politics.

The right to governance has been moved between these two parties after 1990. While Awami League formed the government for three terms, BNP also came into powers for three terms including the short-lived government of 1996. BNP has been very active in politics as well as on the streets in anti-Ershad protest and also in the 1990s. But, in recent years, specially, from 2009 after Awami League regained the power, BNP has become very inactive. They are busy guarding their own backs than addressing people’s issues. This has drastically cut BNP’s popularity, many would say. But this remains to be tested in a free and fair election.

BNP is not found any more on the streets and their top leaders have almost disappeared from the scene. But with the upcoming national election which is scheduled to be held in the last part of 2018 or first part of 2019, BNP seems to be trying to become active again in recent days. This is a good indication that BNP will participate in the next election unlike the election on January 5, 2014 when they ruled out the election and did not participate. But, it will not be easy at all for BNP to overcome the challenges to win the next election.

It is true that, the ruling party Awami League had created many barriers for BNP in recent years. But that is what opponents do to each other. That is what happened during anti-Ershad movement and before and later of that. Political parties are supposed to break those barriers and fight for people’s rights.

They should also criticize the decisions of the government in a constructive manner. They should bring forward the people’s issues so that the citizens can trust them to be their leaders. But BNP could not overcome those challenges due to several issues inside their own party and alliance. They seem to lack political vision now-a-days and have turned into a dialogue-based country. They have vanished from the streets as well as from people’s side.

There are so many conflicts going inside the BNP. Difference in values and priorities of the top leaders are hurting this political superpower of Bangladesh from inside. During the caretaker government’s regime in 2007-2008, many top leaders tried to make a shift of BNP’s leadership by removing their Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia.

They have shown lack of commitment, dedication and loyalty during that period. Since then BNP is yet to taste the flavour of powers. The party could not come out the influence of those days yet. A dense conflict lies between Begum Zia and her eldest son party’s senior vice chairman Tarique Rahman, who is staying abroad with many cases in court against him.

Many young leaders of BNP are followers of Tarique Zia and Begum Zia seems to lose a little bit of her party due to these leadership conflicts. On top of that, many top leaders of BNP have moved out of the party due to several reasons and that is hurting the existence of BNP. Before the next national election, BNP will need to sort out these problems and that seems pretty difficult right at this point.

BNP formed 20-party alliance which came into power in 2001 and a major partner in this alliance was Jamaat-e-Islami. This particular ally of BNP is well known for their anti-liberation war ideology as many of their top leaders were directly involved in helping out the Pakistani military force in 1971 and responsible for killing and raping of so many innocent Bangladeshis.

Most of the top leaders of Jamaat were brought under justice and were punished for their war crimes; few were even hanged to death as the ruling party ensured proper trial of them. Hatred lies in the heart of many Bangladeshis for Jamaat-e-Islami which reflected in people’s self-motivated participation with ‘Gonojagoron Mancha’, who were strongly on the streets in demand of justice for the war crimes.

It will be a very critical decision for BNP if they will go into the next election keeping Jamaat on their side. This alliance has become a big burden for BNP as general people are not sympathetic to this fundamentalist party. Moreover, most of BNP’s 20-party alliance members are very inactive as well as insignificant. So, BNP need to be careful of reviewing their alliance before approaching the national election.

During the last 7-8 years, the most surprising thing about BNP was its absence in citizen’s issues. So many occasions were there when BNP could have come onto the streets fighting for people’s rights. But there was no trace of them on those, not even a statement. BNP has criticized the government on Rohingya issues as if suddenly awakened from a long sleep after the Rohingyas took shelter on our land.

Why they were not vocal about the issues of their own people is not understandable. These Rohingyas will not vote for them. The citizens of Bangladesh will rush to the polling centres to select their next government and BNP leaders should have been vocal on the issues of these citizen as they will vote considering who has fought to make their lives easier rather than reinstating democracy which has been BNP’s common dialogue and focus.

BNP has completely failed to be on Bangladeshi people’s side for a long time and their excuse is brutality of law enforcing agencies. But it is the duty of political parties like BNP to work for people’s welfare ignoring those challenges.

With the demand of caretaker government, BNP abandoned the 10th Parliamentary Election on January 5, 2014. Many tried to bring them into the election including UN representatives but they remained adamant. Awami League proceeded with the election and with no competition retained the power again.

BNP again wrongfully declared program of continuous blockade which took away lives of so many people in a cowardice way. Though there were huge debate on who committed those vandalisms but BNP has to take its liability. Funny thing is, that blockade program is still ongoing as BNP forgot to declare closure of their program and that is completely unexpected from a political party like BNP.

Observing the political scenario of Bangladesh, it is expected that BNP will participate in the next election and if they do not, their existence in Bangladeshi politics will be under question. They have participated properly in Election Commission selection process. Along with Awami League and other parties, they had also provided their options and feedback.

Though they expressed their dissatisfaction over the newly selected commission, it was encouraging that they did not boycott the process which has becoming their one of the identifying characteristics in the recent years.

The EC is sitting with different parties to listen to the recommendations of those parties for the next general election and BNP also participated in that process. And the CEC expressed high hope of creating an environment in which BNP will take part in the election. But we all know BNP has certain agenda which seems difficult to be addressed right at this moment. Though, it is a sight for the eyes that, BNP is yet again moving with focus on the election.

Recently, Begum Khaleda Zia has visited the Rohingya camps at Ukhia and adjacent areas. She was accompanied with hundred cars filled with central and field level leaders as well as media representatives. Thousands of local BNP leaders and workers stood beside the roads her convoy moved through along with few unpleasant scenarios also as her convoy was attacked by  God knows who at several places specially Feni.

She came into public after a long time as she spoke to the people at the Rohingya camps and as usually criticized the government’s role in rehabilitating and repatriating the Rohingyas. This visit was actually more of a political showdown as it tried to measure the roadside popularity of BNP.

When she returned from London after three months few days ago, a similar showdown took place around Dhaka airport adjacent streets. These actually gives us an idea that BNP still has some flairs but BNP will need fire rather than flairs to bring out any result in the upcoming national election.

The ruling party Awami League has excelled in introducing and implementing several development projects and they have huge popularity too. But the Bangladeshi people love changes as we have seen from the previous elections and BNP will try to capitalize on that. In spite of that, only roadside popularity will not bring any fruitful result for BNP.

They need to quickly connect to the people, integrate the party agenda along with the individual agenda of key leaders, strengthen field level workforce and review their alliance. With the short time on hand, it seems very difficult to achieve all those and BNP might get hurt by their delay and negligence.

The writer is the Associate Editor at Mohammadi News Agency (MNA).