Bangladesh’s Democracy Under Siege

When the Awami League came to power in Bangladesh after winning a landslide victory in the 2008 general election, the party promised a modern, progressive, and free democracy for the people. But over the course of the last 14 years, the ruling government has instead chosen to consolidate its hold over the democratic institutions of the country through rampant large-scale corruption and a ruthless suppression of dissent.

With the next general elections poised for January 2024 – elections that the Awami League is expected to win, securing a fourth consecutive term – the government is under pressure to honor its end of the bargain by holding a long-promised free and fair election. But the ruling party’s revenge-fuelled politics, oligarchy-leaning policies, and growing authoritarian tendencies make it difficult to expect one.

Strong Economic Growth Against Rising Inequality

Since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government came into power, Bangladesh has achieved tremendous economic and social development. According to World Bank figures, the national GDP stood at $416.3 billion in 2021, compared to just $6.2 billion at the time of independence in 1971. And that growth continues, with Bangladesh’s GDP expected to be double the current size by 2030.

Life expectancy has increased to 72.4 years as of 2022; infant mortality rates have decreased significantly. Tremendous progress has been made in educating girls and women – more girls are now enrolling in secondary level schools than boys, and 98 percent of all children are completing at least a primary level of education. The nation’s per capita income is currently the second largest in South Asia, just shy of India’s, and mega infrastructure development has been the ruling party’s poster material for years.

But this enviable success comes on the back of growing inequality. Data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics show that income inequality in the country has deepened in the past six years. According to the World Inequality Report 2022, just 1 percent of the population holds 16.3 percent of wealth in Bangladesh.

The consolidation of wealth by a saturated section of society has effectively created a system of oligarchs with considerable political influence. For example, in 2020, cartoonist Ahmed Kabir Kishore was arrested by the notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and then sued under the draconian Digital Security Act (DSA) for defaming the government. Sources close to him, however, allege that the arrest was influenced by a politically well-connected businessperson based out of Dhaka whom Kishore had depicted in a satirical cartoon.

Kishore was tortured and served 10 months in prison. His cellmate, Mushtaq Ahmed, who also faced charges under the DSA, died in custody in 2021.

Another case of oligarchic power play was brought to public attention when the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) ran an investigative report on a former cab driver named Mohammed Abdus Sobhan Miah, who allegedly owns over $4 million worth of real estate in New York. Miah is currently a Member of the Parliament from the ruling Awami League. OCCRP reported that Miah started amassing wealth in New York after he shot to power as a special aide to Hasina.

Incidents like these undermine the government’s genuine development efforts, overshadow the economic successes, and contribute to the larger picture of rampant corruption in Bangladesh. According to Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Bangladesh is the 12th most corrupt country in the world and the second most corrupt in South Asia, coming after Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

As the economic woes of average Bangladeshis mount, amid global headwinds, public anger over cases of corruption and inequality continues to grow.

Crackdown on the Opposition

Growing inequality and corruption aside, the decline of democracy in Bangladesh remains the most pressing concern for critics of the Hasina government, particularly ahead of the upcoming election.

Over the course of 14 years under the Hasina regime, the government has developed a notorious habit of cracking down heavily on the opposition, fuelled partly by personal vendettas. The elections of 2014 and 2018 were marred by serious allegations of electoral fraud, intimidation, and mass arrests. The government denied any wrongdoings and blamed the “lack of a strong opposition” for the one-sided election results.

The opposition, however, alleged that the government was using intimidation tactics. In October 2022, senior leaders of the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), claimed that at least 20,000 cases had been filed against BNP members in an order to create an atmosphere of fear.

On December 7, a man was killed and some 50 others were injured in a clash between police, Awami League supporters, and opposition party supporters. On December 10, the Awami League violently attacked opposition party supporters, with backing from the local police.

It is worthwhile to note that the main opposition later, Khaleda Zia, was sentenced to five years imprisonment in 2018 over a graft case. She was released on bail in 2020 with an extended sentence. Amnesty International, however, alleged that Zia, like many opposition party members, was not granted a fair trial.

In between the daytime crackdowns, the country continued to see a wave of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, targeted primarily toward opposition members and carried out mostly by the notorious law enforcement agency RAB.

According to human rights watchdogs, the special paramilitary force has been responsible for at least 600 enforced disappearances since 2009 and almost as many extrajudicial deaths since 2018. Following the allegations and airing of concerns by human rights organizations and critics, the United States imposed sanctions on the RAB and seven of its top officials, refusing them entry into the United States.

Bangladesh’s government strongly opposed the decision and decried the allegations against the RAB, redirecting the blame to the United States itself for assisting Bangladesh in establishing the elite paramilitary force to fight terrorism in “the ways taught by the Americans.”

Observers, however, allege that the sanctions worked. According to Ain o Shalish Kendra (ASK), a local human rights watchdog and activist organization, there had been 34 cases of enforced disappearances in 2018, before the sanctions came. In 2022, after the United States’ sanctions, the number of enforced disappearances came down to four.

Despite the government’s repeated denials, the RAB’s notorious reputation was well-known. It was brought to public discourse at large in April 2023, when the German news media Deutsche Welle (DW) published an in-depth investigative report on the RAB’s extrajudicial killings and custodial tortures, corroborated by two whistleblowers and a surviving victim.

The War on Free Speech

Perhaps the ruling government’s most notorious war is on the country’s free press and the media. Bangladesh ranked 163rd out of 177 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2023 World Press Freedom Index. That marked an all-time low for Bangladesh, and made it the lowest scoring country in South Asia.

Over the course of 14 years, a well-muzzled press has become a signature trait of the Hasina regime. The premier’s dislike for Prothom Alo and The Daily Star, two of the largest newspapers in Bangladesh, is infamous. She has often publicly slammed the newspapers and their editors and went as far as branding them as “traitors to the nation” for their independent editorial policies.

On government orders, Dainik Dinkal, the main opposition party newspaper, was shut down earlier this year – a move that showcased the extent of control the government exercises on the free press.

With the introduction of the Digital Security Act (DSA) in 2018, the government effectively made it impossible for dissidents to exercise free speech. In a tightly government controlled media landscape, editors and their media outlets now take extra caution to self-censor in fear of retribution.

Those who fail to do so can face dire consequences. In March 2023, a reporter for Prothom Alo and the newspaper’s editor, Matiur Rahman, were charged under the Digital Security Act for allegedly defaming the government and undermining the spirit of Bangladesh’s Independence. The charges stemmed from a story Prothom Alo had published on Bangladesh’s rising inflation rate, which happened to run on the eve of the country’s 52nd Independence Day.

According to reports by observers and human rights watchdogs, at least 4,500 people have been charged under the DSA and its predecessor, the Information Technology Act 2006, since 2013.

The harassment of journalists by pro-government agencies is also a common practice. On April 17, 2021, Rozina Islam, a senior reporter for Prothom Alo was harassed by officials at the Health Ministry when she went to collect information for a report. She was later arrested on charges of theft from the ministry premises.

On June 15, at the time of writing this article, it was reported that journalist Golam Rabbani Nadeem had been ambushed and killed by a local politician’s men in Mymensingh, some 120 kilometers north of capital Dhaka. The politician had reportedly earlier tried to sue Nadeem under the DSA.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 18 journalists have been killed in Bangladesh since 2009 when the ruling party first came to power. Most of the cases remain unresolved. With Nadeem’s murder, the number just went up to 19.

International Criticism and the Government’s Response

Over the years, the actions of the government, especially its crackdown on the opposition and the media, have drawn stark criticism from international observer bodies such as Human Rights Watch. But the U.S. sanctions on the RAB arguably marked the first significant international response to the growing crisis of democracy in Bangladesh. Although the decision was criticized heavily by the Bangladeshi government, it appeared to work, as the number of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances by the RAB dropped dramatically.

The most talked about international response came on May 24 when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took to Twitter to announce a new visa policy for Bangladesh. Under the new visa policy, Blinken announced, the United States held the right to impose visa restrictions on individuals and their family members if they were found complicit in undermining the democratic process in the upcoming elections.

This was followed by a letter to Blinken signed by six Congressmen that urged the secretary to continue his call for accountability for a free and fair election in Bangladesh.

A similar sentiment was echoed when six Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) signed a joint letter to the High Representative of the Parliament, urging action to restore democracy in Bangladesh.

Following the U.S. visa policy, a clearly irked Dhaka immediately announced the withdrawal of special protocol and police escorts for foreign diplomats and ambassadors in the country. Since then, the prime minister has on multiple occasions publicly slammed the United States. Hasina openly accused Washington of trying to destabilize her government. “Perhaps the United States is unable to accept improvements I have made for Bangladesh,” she said in a recent interview with the BBC.

Despite the Hasina government’s criticism of growing international meddling in Bangladesh’s “internal matters,” these efforts seem to be serving their purpose. After being dormant and cornered for nearly the entirety of the last 14 years, the BNP held their first nation-wide rally in nine cities and 27 districts in May this year without any major reports of clashes between cops or Awami League supporters.

Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami was similarly allowed to hold a rally in the capital city on June 13, its first in nearly a decade. No clashes were reported and Jamaat-e-Islami supporters went on to issue their three-point demands, including the holding of a free and fair election under a caretaker government.

A clashless opposition rally is a rare sight in Bangladesh, and these events sparked speculation among observers that the U.S. visa policy and sanctions may have prompted the Awami League government to revisit its strategies ahead of the election.

Over the past three consecutive terms, Hasina has reiterated, on multiple occasions, that Bangladesh had no alternative to her rule. Her government has certainly tried to ensure that, with the V-Dem Institute terming Bangladesh an “electoral autocracy” in its 2023 annual democracy report. The report listed Bangladesh as one of the Asia-Pacific countries that has “declined substantially” in its democratization process since 2012.

With a repressed opposition, a controlled press and a circle of oligarchs, the longest serving female prime minister in the world is expected to return for a fourth consecutive term. A much needed return to strong democracy in Bangladesh would certainly be welcomed. But the hope of change is possibly just wishful thinking.