Muhammad Yunus’s Administration in Bangladesh: A Dangerous Path Towards Authoritarianism
In December 2023, just ahead of the January 2024 election, Prof. Ali Riaz wrote a piece titled “Bangladesh’s Blueprint for Engineering an Election” in The Diplomat. It elaborated on how Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League created an environment of mock competition to legitimise their victory in the absence of the principal opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
“The ruling party’s strategy is comprised of three elements: first, keeping a united BNP out of the electoral process; second, peeling off leaders from the BNP into newly minted parties to create an impression that the BNP is fragmenting and its voters have an option in the election; and third, bringing in as many smaller parties as possible to the election,” wrote the distinguished professor of political science at Illinois State University and a non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council. Hasina was ousted from power in August 2024. Over the last nine months, the interim administration led by Dr Muhammad Yunus followed the same blueprint – and more.
This time, Prof Riaz was part of the administration as vice-chairman of the National Consensus Commission and head of the Bangladesh Constitutional Reforms Commission. The student leaders of the July uprising are now divided into at least three factions. They speak mostly in one tone. The largest among them, the National Citizen Party (NCP), is clearly an arm of the government – with part of their leadership in official positions and the rest holding portfolios in the party. There is no evidence of their popularity, but ample evidence of their ability to create mobs, apparently with support from sections of Islamist groups.
Last week, when the world was anxiously watching the India-Pakistan conflict, the NCP and Hefazat-e-Islam – a non-political association of clerics and students from unregulated Qawmi madrasas – demanded a ban on the Awami League. Slogans were raised in support of the 1971 Liberation War criminals, right from the Shahbagh Square, which had once been a site of pro-Liberation movements. Muhammad Jasimuddin Rahmani, chief of the banned terrorist outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), joined the demonstration. He had been released from jail during the Yunus regime. The government obliged the protestors with electric speed. Cases had already been registered against Hasina and her associates in the same International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), created under the 1973 Act to punish collaborators of the Pakistani army during the Liberation War. On May 10, merely two to three days after the demonstration by its own political wing, the Yunus administration issued an executive order (ordinance) empowering the tribunal to hold trials of political parties.
In a parallel move, the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2009, was amended to prevent the Awami League and its leaders from engaging in political activities – even in cyberspace. The Election Commission (EC) suspended the party’s registration.
The party with the most significant contributions to the creation and development of Bangladesh was criminalised and legally barred from political activity until the trials are over.
This is over and above the administrative and non-administrative atrocities that the party has been facing. The Awami League and its 14-party alliance members were effectively pushed out of the political space since August. On paper, the Yunus administration maintained its commitment to democratic values. Notably, at a meeting with an International Crisis Group delegation in March, Dr. Yunus stated that he had no plans to ban the party. The reality was quite the opposite. According to a report in Prothom Alo in February, 35 Awami League ministers and 43 other MPs were arrested in the first six months of the Yunus regime. Most of the remaining leaders have fled the country. There is no official communication on the total number of arrests, but unofficial reports say up to 50,000 League activists are in jail. The party that secured 40 percent of the vote even during its worst times (2001) has been forced to go underground.
Human rights activists like Barrister Jyotirmoy Barua, once vocal against the Hasina government, have recently alleged a clampdown on bail provisions and a complete breakdown of the judicial process. Fazlur Rahman, an adviser to the BNP chairperson, admitted in a TV interview that courts operated with relatively greater neutrality under the Awami League. An April 22 report in The Milli Chronicle stated that over 131 lawyers were arrested for alleged connections to the Awami League. Barrister Turin Afroz, a former ICT prosecutor, was jailed. To put things in perspective: over the last nine months, Awami League activists have been deprived of basic rights that even criminals enjoy in moderately civilised societies – let alone democracies. Now, roughly 4.8 crore core voters of the party are deprived of their political choice. Many believe it is part of a “meticulous design” (a phrase famously used by Dr Yunus to describe the July uprising) to scoop – not “peel” – out leaders from the League’s extensive grassroots organisation.
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission is being proposed. It will act as a political washing machine. The first target is to place Awami candidates as Independents, under some form of oath, in local elections. Over time, they will be absorbed into the NCP or another party enjoying administrative support. The façade of democracy will be maintained by allowing entry to a host of new parties. At least 65 parties are awaiting EC registration.
The BNP supported the ban on the Awami League and may end up the biggest loser in this manoeuvre, as Awami converts will face BNP candidates in elections. And that suits the Yunus regime. The BNP was a clear favourite to win after Hasina’s ouster, but they did nothing to force Yunus to hold an election. Acting vice-chairperson Tarique Rahman remains in London despite his acquittal in several cases. Chairperson Khaleda Zia, who is unwell, has just returned from London.
The benefit has gone to Yunus and his cohorts. According to the original law, interim governments are to stay for a maximum of six months. Yunus promised an election before June, but few in Bangladesh expect one any time soon. Both the Islamists and the NCP have publicly voiced opposition to elections. And the longer the elections are delayed, the slimmer BNP’s chances of winning become. Bangladesh appears to be heading for a textbook implementation of the ‘minus-two’ theory first proposed by the army in 2007 – and championed by Dr Yunus in conversations with American diplomats. The European Union has effectively endorsed the latest plan by placing reforms ahead of elections.
Hasina established a hegemonic rule. She worked overtime to keep the opposition weak. She rigged the 2018 election, in which the BNP participated. She removed the provision for interim governments, and the BNP abstained from elections in protest in both 2014 and 2024. But she never dared to ban the BNP or postpone elections. The democratic world, led by the US, objected to her trials of the Jamaat-e-Islami, which collaborated with the Pakistani army in 1971. They questioned the state of human rights and democracy. Joe Biden administration literally clamped down on her. It is now up to the West to clarify whether and how Bangladesh improved on the scale of democracy and political freedom.
