Bangladesh’s election shall be a “sham” designed to cement Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s rule, says exiled opposition chief Tarique Rahman, defending his celebration’s boycott of Sunday’s vote.
Rahman is inheritor to one of many nation’s two most important political dynasties – the opposite led by Hasina – and has helmed its largest opposition celebration because the 2018 jailing of his mom, two-time Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.
Six years in the past, he was convicted in absentia of masterminding a lethal grenade assault on a marketing campaign rally for Hasina and sentenced to life imprisonment. Rahman insists the cost is fabricated.
His Bangladesh Nationalist Celebration (BNP) staged a months-long protest marketing campaign final yr demanding the prime minister’s resignation that noticed at the least 11 individuals killed and 1000’s of its supporters arrested.
In his interview with the AFP information company revealed on Thursday, Rahman, 56, stated it might be inappropriate to have his celebration take part in a vote with a “predetermined” end result.
“Bangladesh is approaching one other sham election,” he stated by e mail from London, the place he has lived since 2008.
“Taking part in an election below Hasina, towards the aspirations of the Bangladeshi individuals, would undermine the sacrifices of those that fought, shed blood and gave their lives for democracy.”
Rahman stated the chances towards the BNP and dozens of different events which joined the boycott had been overwhelmingly stacked towards them by the governing Awami League.
He accused it of fielding “dummy” opposition candidates aligned with the governing celebration to provide the election a patina of legitimacy. This may create “an impression of competitors despite the fact that all outcomes are predetermined”, he stated.
He additionally claimed the Awami League was trying to drive up turnout by threatening to withhold authorities advantages from those that didn’t vote for its candidates.
The US, which sanctioned Bangladeshi safety forces in 2021 over allegations of rights abuses, and different international locations have additionally voiced their issues concerning the conduct of this week’s vote.
Hasina, in energy since 2009, has repeatedly assured that the election can be credible after observers stated the earlier polls gained by her celebration – in 2014 and 2018 – had been marred by irregularities.
“Go to the polling stations and forged votes within the morning to indicate the world that we all know how one can maintain the election in a free and truthful method,” she instructed a marketing campaign rally on Saturday.
Twin dynasties
Rahman and Hasina’s households have dominated the world’s eighth-most populous nation for all however 12 years since 1971.
Rahman’s father, Ziaur Rahman, a former military chief, took the reins of the nation after the assassination of Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, serving as president till his assassination in 1981.
His mom, Zia, as soon as teamed up with Hasina to revive democracy after a interval of navy rule, earlier than the 2 turned bitter adversaries as they competed for political energy because the Nineties.
Rahman has stored a low profile in London since leaving his nation shortly earlier than Hasina took energy. He’s hardly ever seen in public besides at weddings of outstanding members of the Bangladeshi diaspora or occasions marking nationwide holidays.
However with Zia jailed for corruption in 2018 and now confined to a Dhaka hospital in deteriorating well being, Rahman has led the South Asian nation’s largest opposition celebration in her stead, talking every day with cadres by way of video and cellphone conferences.
Final yr, the BNP mounted enormous rallies, industrial strikes, and street blockades, bringing the capital to a standstill.
The marketing campaign demanded Hasina resign and appoint a impartial caretaker authorities to supervise the election, an earlier conference in Bangladeshi politics that her authorities had abolished.
One rally in October resulted in bloodshed and the BNP stated about 25,000 opposition activists had been arrested within the ensuing crackdown. The federal government places the determine at 11,000.
Hasina has accused Rahman of orchestrating violence that accompanied the protest marketing campaign and raised the prospect of banning the BNP after the vote. “We is not going to enable him to provide orders from London to hurt and kill individuals,” she stated on Saturday.
‘Brutal and blatant’
Rahman denied accusations that his celebration was chargeable for a spate of arson assaults through the protests, which he described as a pretext for the federal government’s crackdown.
However his political profession has lengthy been below a cloud.
A leaked US embassy cable from 2008 calls him a “infamous and broadly feared … image of kleptocratic authorities” who had “flagrantly” demanded bribes in return for procurement choices and political appointments.
He was ceaselessly accused of corruption throughout his mom’s final premiership and was convicted in exile. He maintains his innocence.
Rahman was additionally convicted whereas overseas of organising a 2004 grenade assault on a political rally that injured Hasina and killed at the least 20 individuals.
He insists the decision was politically motivated and accused Hasina of rewarding the police officer who led the investigation towards him with a parliamentary nomination for this week’s election.
“I’m being focused in a brutal and blatant method,” he stated. “Even after 15 years of energy, this regime has failed to provide [any] single real proof.”