Shameran Abed

THE London-based Economist magazine once again hit the nail right on its head this week in a short commentary it published on Bangladesh's politics titled Looking for the exit. Referring to the failure of the military-controlled interim government, thus far, to implement its devious 'minus-two' scheme, the magazine wrote: 'It seems certain that the calls to release the two women [Awami League president Sheikh Hasina and Bangladesh Nationalist Party chairperson Khaleda Zia] will intensify. In the absence of other leaders, this gives the army a choice: democracy and the two begums or no begums and no democracy. Determined not to let them back, the generals, it is feared, may choose the latter course.'

The spectre of an extended stay of a military-controlled government has loomed large for over a year now and the suggestion by the Economist that the powers that be may choose to perpetuate themselves in power well past their promised exit date of December 2008 in order to keep the two women out in the cold will not come as a surprise to anyone. Where the Economist does add value is in putting the options available to our present rulers in such correct and plain terms – 'democracy and the two begums or no begums and no democracy.' This is particularly apt because our rulers had convinced themselves, rather obtusely, that democracy depended upon getting rid of the 'begums'. However, the future of our democracy depends not on the implementation of 'minus-two' by our generals nor on the ability of the civilian façade of the powers that be, i.e. the interim government of Fakhruddin Ahmed and the Election Commission headed by ATM Shamsul Huda, to fashion acceptable general elections to the ninth parliament. It depends instead, whether we wish to believe it or not, on the ability of our two major political leaders – the two 'begums' as the Economist refers to them – to rise out of the ashes and to lead their parties and our country in a new direction.

The implementation of 'minus-two', from the point of view of the powers that be, would have been far more straightforward if there were alternative leaders within our two main political parties who would be able to keep the parties' top leadership united on the one hand and be acceptable to the vast majority of their activist rank and file on the other. If that were the case, it would be a question of removing the two 'begums' from the scene, even temporarily, to facilitate the assumption of leadership of those credible alternatives. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina remain the only credible and acceptable leaders within their respective parties, especially to the rank and file who are deeply loyal to the two leaders even though some central leaders appear to have turned their backs on them since the January 2007 change of guard. For as long as the two leaders continue to have the loyalty of their leaders and workers at the grassroots, the implementation of 'minus-two' is doomed for failure. Therefore, instead of trying to liquidate the political careers of Khaleda and Hasina and looking elsewhere, it is to the two women that we still have to turn for political leadership, and it is in their leadership that we are still forced to hope for a democratic upturn.

However, hoping for Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina to suddenly deliver democracy to this country when neither of them have ever been particularly democratic or behaved democratically, individually or collectively in their parties, is admittedly nothing short of clutching at straws. It would not be going too far to refer to the two leaders as tyrants – both as heads of their parties and leaders of our country. Till now, there has not even been any hint that the two women feel remorse for their past crimes, which makes the chances of their democratic transformations look even more grim. Yet, the political reality in our country is such that we have a better chance of hitting the democratic jackpot waiting for our tyrannical political matriarchs to turn the corner than we do hoping for this unelected military-controlled government in an undemocratic dispensation to somehow impose democratic leadership and democratic governance on our country.

Unfortunately, the ruling coterie – aided and abetted by our elitist and out of touch civil society and the politically naïve resident representatives of our western 'development partners' – is yet to come to terms with the reality on the ground. Having started out with the mistaken assumption that the democratisation of our state and society depends upon the ousting of Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina from our political scene, accepting the simple fact that the two women are the only ones who hold the keys to a qualitative change in the nature of politics in this country is a bitter pill for our current rulers and their collaborators in civil society and the 'international community' to swallow. Hence, our military-controlled government is adamantly carrying on with its attempts to implement 'minus-two', apparently unaware that forcibly keeping the two leaders out of active politics will not, in any way, diminish their political relevance. If anything, sympathy for the two detained leaders will only rise with time and as people are exposed to more economic, social and political mismanagement by this regime, the bad governance delivered by its predecessors will fade from memory. At the end of the day, the people will always much prefer to be governed by the devil they know and have some say in selecting than the one they do not know and cannot control.

The mistake that has been made by our present rulers and their collaborators from the very beginning has been in thinking that democracy cannot be advanced if Khaleda and Hasina remain politically relevant and active, which they undoubtedly will. They have been so caught up in the 'minus-two' frenzy that they have been ready to accept the most opportunistic and corrupt stooges of the two leaders, who have suddenly decided to re-brand themselves as 'reformists', to take the place of the two women, even though such a changeover in the leaderships of the two main parties can only harm democracy, not advance it.

The sooner the current regime acknowledges the fact that Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina will continue to be the two major political leaders in our country for some time to come and that democracy will depend upon their actions and not on the success of others' attempts at replacing them, the sooner it may focus on the areas in which this regime can add value to democracy. These include strengthening democratic institutions and improving their ability to maintain checks and balances, not instituting a national security council to undermine democratic institutions and to legitimise the military's role in politics. They include the empowering and capacity development of the Election Commission to ensure that the existing political parties abide by electoral rules, not trying to create a new political party that will be loyal to the ruling coterie. They include the updating of electoral rules in order to make the political parties more democratic internally and more financially and organisationally transparent from the outside, not by trying to impose regime change within the parties through the use of our intelligence agencies. By ensuring that parties are forced to play within the rules of the game, democracy can be given firmer roots even while the two 'begums' are still at their helm.

But before that, our current rulers will have to realise that the choices available to them are 'democracy and the two begums or no begums and no democracy', not democracy or the two begums as they like to think. If that realisation does dawn, the hope is that instead of choosing the option to stay in power to keep the two women out, they will choose the option of democracy and lay the groundwork for the two 'begums' to have to alter their style.

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