Uncertain BNP faces assertive Awami League after two years out of parliament

Braving a fierce and violent agitation to stop the Jan 5 2014 polls, the Awami League government managed to hold the polls and return to power in a no-contest election.

Despite questions over its moral legitimacy, the government has survived and actually managed to get started on its ambitious development plans.

The visible impact of work on the Padma Bridge with Bangladesh's own resources has helped the Hasina government make a statement that is not lost on the people—that of Bangladesh no longer being a basket case and, indeed, being capable of materialising mega projects even if the likes of World Bank back out.

On the first anniversary of the Jan 5 polls, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia launched an indefinite blockade that continued for three months and left more than 100 people dead.

This picture of Ruhul Kabir Rizvi at the entrance of BNP's Naya Paltan HQ somewhat reflects the current state of the party

That proved counter-productive for the BNP and alienated it from the people.

The Awami League stepped up its campaign to isolate the BNP, portraying it as a party of 'mindless violence' and its links to Jamaat-e-e-Islami was used to embarrass it further, even as jihadi activities mounted.

The Awami League's smart use of the war crimes trials to link the legacy of pro-Pakistani religious bigotry with the current surfeit of jihadi activity seems to have worked, further helping to isolate the BNP.

Tough action against Pakistani diplomats and threats to 'review relations' with Islamabad has only boosted the Awami League's stock with the secular nationalist constituency.

Politically, the Awami League outwitted the Opposition by amending laws to hold civic body polls on party lines, that left even the BNP with no option but to contest the polls, despite crying foul from the very beginning about the poll process.

The BNP, which swept the city corporation polls in 2013 has been left to wonder why it failed to make a mark in the Dhaka and Chittagong city corporation polls in April 2014—and in the Dec 30 polls to the 234 municipalities.

That, after Khaleda Zia's tall boast that 'we will get all the votes'.

Somewhere down the line, the BNP seems to be losing out on its act.

Allegations over 'murder of democracy' is not cutting much ice.

Prime Minister and Awami league chief Sheikh Hasina publicly mocks the BNP's ‘inability to launch a major movement'.

The confident Awami League, which led the nation to independence, is going to celebrate the second anniversary of the last national election as the 'Victory of Democracy Day'.

 On the other hand, BNP is marking the day as 'Murder of Democracy Day', after boycott of the polls.

But many are asking the obvious question — why did it not announce a protest plan against rigging in the municipal polls after raising a stink about it?

The BNP was never in the same bracket as the Awami League when it comes to leading an agitation but it played an important role in bringing down the military regime of HM Ershad.

 Why can't it resurrect its organisation for an effective popular agitation against the Awami League, which has anti-incumbency and internal strife to worry about?

According to BNP’s central information cell, two-thirds of the 75 organisational districts are run by old committees.

The party initiated a process to revamp the organisation in late 2015, but the process did not go far.

Joint Secretary General Mohammad Shahjahan has thrown the entire blame for its failure on the government.

"The government did not only stop at suppressing us, it also worked to block our revamping," he said.

"Police arrested our leaders from house meetings. How will we work in such a situation?" he asked.

BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi's brave assertion of trying to take the party forward despite an 'unusually vicious campaign of arrests, intimidation and harassment' seems to have fallen on its face.

"All this is having an adverse effect on our efforts to revive the party organisation," he admitted recently. 

"There is no democracy. I blame the government for that," he said, but his failure to talk of a roadmap for the BNP reflects poorly on the party and its future.

The uncertainty over a future roadmap has hit the BNP adversely in recent months. In October last year, Vice Chairman Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury announced his retirement from politics.

A former foreign secretary, Chowdhury, who was known to be close to the party’s top leadership and handled its global affairs cell, cited health issues behind the decision.

Standing Committee Member Salauddin Quader Chowdhury was executed for 1971 war crimes in November last year.

The BNP had to face a lot criticism over him and its ally the Jamaat-e-Islami, many of whose top leaders also stand convicted for war crimes.

The party, however, blames all its woes on the government's ‘ploy to wipe us out ’.

“Thousands of leaders and activists are facing trials based on false allegations. Several are in jail. Many others have been abducted and missing and also murdered. The BNP has to strive in such a tough scenario,” says Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

The senior BNP leader, who spent much of last year in jail, claims that their party is still the biggest in Bangladesh. “The BNP will move forward with the people and foil all conspiracies against it.”

The Awami League tried to beat the political challenge on the democracy question by focusing on its development agendas.

Ruling party leaders have been brushing away BNP’s demand for national elections under a non-party government and say that the people’s priority now is not polls but development. 

The BNP claims that Sheikh Hasina, due to her personal control over the party and government, has turned out to be an autocrat.

Amid complaints of a lacklustre organisational profile, Awami League supporters and activists were taken aback last year, when their General Secretary Syed Ashraful Islam was removed from the politically important ministerial portfolio of local government.

Hasina managed the situation by making him the public administration minister within a few days.

However, the ruling party is yet to be bogged down by internal strife within its central bodies, but there are unquiet rumblings at the grassroots.

Syed Ashraf’s address at the party rally drove home the point that Awami League's challenge was to stay on course when it faced no major political challenge.

Speaking at a National Mourning Day (Aug 15) programme, last year he said, “Our party was in power then (1975) but where were our leaders and activists when Bangabandhu and his family were massacred? Wasn't that a huge failure on our part?”

Ashraf's 1975 reminder, that many felt was timely,  was perhaps an attempt to warn party men on possible conspiracies to unseat the party from power even when all seemed to be going well.

Whether that leads to organisational efforts to prepare for meeting any eventuality remains to be seen.