Image on right: A Bangladesh military guard checks his weapon during a street patrol in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Wednesday, April 25, 2007. (AP Photo)

In recent weeks, Bangladesh has continued its steady slide away from democratic governance and toward increasing military rule. The current crisis began to unfold in late January 2007, when the head of the caretaker government, Iajuddin Ahmed, suddenly declared a state of emergency, postponed the scheduled January 22 elections and then resigned. Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former World Bank official, replaced Iajuddin Ahmed as the head of the interim government and reconstituted the 10-person governing body. He pledged to hold elections as soon as possible but ordered the army to remain on the streets "in aid of the civilian administration" for as long as necessary during the emergency. In the weeks after Fakhruddin Ahmed’s assumption of power, it became clear that the Bangladesh army was behind the government’s change. The army continues to dominate the political scene, increasingly eroding both the appearance and the reality of democracy in Bangladesh.

In January, some 60,000 troops deployed throughout the country, ostensibly to maintain order. Since being deployed, the army has led a crackdown against ordinary criminals, criminal syndicates, Islamist terrorists and their patrons. They have also arrested 139,000 people, including 160 senior politicians—including 16 former ministers—and businessmen under charges of corruption. The arrested politicians are affiliated with mainstream parties and the Islamist party, Jamaat Islami. Human rights advocates continue to express concern about the diminished rule of law, the prolonged emergency under which civil right are suspended, mass arrests, expedited executions, and extrajudicial killings. Since the January 11 state of emergency, 70 detainees have died in custody.

Also since January 11, the army has continued to consolidate its position in Bangladesh’s government, fueling suspicions that the Bangladesh army has torn a page out of Pakistan’s history. It continues to postpone the restoration of democratic governance through the conduct of free and fair elections. In mid-April, the government announced that former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia would go into exile, most likely to Saudi Arabia. At the same time, the government announced that former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would not be permitted to return to Bangladesh following a family visit to the United States. In effort to further discourage her return, they filed charges against her alleging culpability in deaths that occurred during a political demonstration. The military government touted the removal of the "battling begums" as the beginning of transparent, dynasty-free politics in Bangladesh. On April 25, under mounting international pressure, Dhaka reversed its decision to exile the two leaders.

While Bangladesh’s dilemma has episodically drawn international attention, USIP South Asia expert Christine Fair says that the current problems stem from decades of failed governance and rule of law, dysfunctional mainstream parties stuck in a struggle to maintain power at all costs, and growing Islamist influence. USIP interviewed Fair about Bangladesh’s electoral breakdown and U.S. interests in the region.

• What precipitated the January breakdown?
• Why did this crisis erupt when it did?
• So the January crisis is really an eruption of underlying historical forces?
• What has been the reaction of the international community?
• What are the stakes for the United States?
• What can be done now?

What precipitated the January breakdown?

Bangladesh has a fairly unique electoral system. It has a parliamentary system with fixed five-year terms, but at the end of that period, power is supposed to be transferred to a caretaker government composed of respected civil servants led by the most recently retired chief justice of the Supreme Court. This transitional government is entrusted to oversee the elections. However, since 2005, a number of election-related issues became apparent. First, the Election Commission (EC) appeared to be acting in a partisan manner. The biggest dispute was the voters’ list. The EC announced that it would dispense with the working list and create a new one from scratch. This raised concerns that the EC, acting in a partisan manner would create a list favorable to the ruling BNP government.

In fact, this appears to be what happened. The National Democratic Institute analyzed that list and found that there were millions of excess voters, buttressing concerns of Bangladeshi critics. After a protracted legal battle and EC intransigence, the EC agreed to “revise the old list.” However, NDI analyzed the new list as well and found at least 10 million excess voters. As the voters’ list controversy simmered, public confidence in the neutrality of the Caretaker Government receded. In a further worrying move, the Bangladesh army was called up weeks before the election.

With doubt about the credibility of the voters’ list and other signs that the January 2007 elections would not be held freely, the Awami League and allied parties announced in early January that they would boycott the elections. Without the participation of this important mainstream party, most international election observer groups cancelled their missions and the United Nations soon thereafter withdrew its electoral support. Within days of these developments, the head of the caretaker government and president, Iajuddin Ahmed, declared an army-backed state of emergency in the country, suspended civil liberties, imposed a curfew, and then resigned, along with 9 of the government’s 10 most senior advisers. Among the reasons he cited for his departure, Iajuddin Ahmed explained that fair elections could not be held with the current voters’ list. Although he has resigned from the head of the caretaker government, he remains the president of Bangladesh and is resisting BNP attempts to replace him with yet another loyalist. Fakhruddin Ahmed, a respected former World Bank official and former central bank governor, superceded Iajuddin Ahmed as the head of the interim government. He recently reconstituted the 10-body interim governing body and pledged to hold elections as soon as possible. Notwithstanding this patina of civilian rule, it appears increasingly clear that the army is calling the shots and that this state of affairs enjoys the support of the various foreign missions in Dhaka. Foreign and some domestic observers alike are optimistic that the army will be able to clean up the vast corruption, fix the dysfunctional political structure, ameliorate the deep politicization of the civil service and shepherd credible elections and then return to their barracks. However, this may be wishful thinking. More disturbing, Bangladesh has a solid history of military rule. Encouraging greater role of the army in Bangladesh’ political crisis is not likely to foster a restoration of Bangladesh’s imperiled democracy.

Why did this crisis erupt when it did?

The immediate source of the problem is that the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), which was in power from 2001 to October 2006 when the caretaker government assumed power, made numerous efforts to manipulate the election. It appointed one of its own as the head of the transitional government after the man who was slated to become the chief refused. And it appointed the electoral commission, which gamed the above-noted voter list. But the problems go deeper. The leaders of the two political parties are both women—they are widows and daughters of former Bangladeshi leaders—and both have suffered personal bloodshed. They’ve had atrocities committed against their families. There has been no history of healing, no reconciliation. Politics has become a zero-sum game, with enormous wealth and power accruing to the winner. And with neither party able to gain a clear victory, Islamist parties have emerged as kingmakers. In fact, the BNP came to power in 2001 because of its alliance with key Islamist parties. In late 2006, Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League also struck a bargain with a hard-line Islamist party, the Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish. This party had previously been part of an alliance of Islamist parties, the Islami Oikya Jote, which was part of Zia’s BNP-led government. This was a controversial move because the Khelafat Majlish was notorious for its pro-Taliban rhetoric, support for an Islamic state, and for issuing fatwas. This was a powerful blow to the Awami League’s claim to be the repository of Bangladesh’s commitment to secular democracy and disturbed some of its stalwart supporters.

Image on right: Bangladeshi citizens read news related to the declared state of emergency in the morning newspapers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Friday, Jan. 12, 2007. (Photo Courtesy AP)

So the January crisis is really an eruption of underlying historical forces?

Yes. Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, won its independence in 1971 from West Pakistan in a brutal war. That war was motivated by Bengali nationalism, which came under fierce pressure in the unified Pakistan. Because Pakistan was founded on the principle that it should be the home for South Asia’s Muslims, the Bengalis of East Pakistan were expected to subordinate their ethnic identity to the religious identity of the state. Moreover, many of the collaborators of the Pakistanis who perpetrated atrocities against the Bangladeshis were members of prominent Islamist parties, most notably the Jamaat Islami.

Jamaat Islami believed that ethno-national movements threatened the umma—the integrity of the Islamic world. For these and other reasons, Bangladeshis repudiated political Islam for several years after independence, and made it illegal to use Islam in politics. Now the historical pendulum is swinging back. We live in a world of globalization, and Bangladesh is in the middle of it. Political Islam is gaining greater and greater legitimacy throughout the world. It would be difficult for Bangladesh’s domestic developments to remain disconnected to global political Islam, particularly given the investments of Arabs in Bangladesh and the massive Bangladeshi diaspora living in the Gulf and elsewhere in the Arab world.

What has been the reaction of the international community?

For the most part, until 2005 or so the international community tended to take Bangladesh for granted. There had been three fair and free elections since 1991. (However, too often analysts overlooked the February 1996 elections, which were not so free and fair.) The economy was growing at about 5 percent a year or higher, despite failures of governance and massive corruption. And its human development indicators looked good. There was a sense that this was a secular moderate democratic country with reasonable growth prospects.

But there were signs that things were not as good below the surface. Increasingly, India complained that Bangladesh was becoming a haven for Islamist militants operating against it. Until February 2005, the BNP government denied the existence of Islamist groups in Bangladesh despite pervasive press reports about their attacks against secularists, intellectuals, Sufi shrines, and opposition leaders. The BNP took action against some of these groups only after a meeting of donors at the World Bank during which punitive steps were floated. In August 2005, Islamist militants simultaneously detonated hundreds of small bombs in 63 of 64 districts. While only one or two people died, the logistics of this attack drew widespread attention. Again, under intense international pressure, the government acted to arrest the most notorious terrorists such as Bangla Bhai. However, questions continue to linger about the ability of these groups to operate within Bangladesh.

In addition, by late 2005, it was clear that there were going to be problems with the elections, because increasingly it seemed doubtful that the BNP would allow free elections to take place. But the international community and the United States came up short on policy options. Bangladesh is not, strictly speaking, aid-dependent and most policy makers felt they had few options other than verbal rebuke and shaming. There is also a resource issue when it comes to Bangladesh. Expertise on Bangladesh is thin among policy analysts and analytical capability and interest in South Asia has been focused on Afghanistan, the U.S.-India strategic relationship, and, until recently, the Indo-Pakistani conflict. It was difficult for some agencies to justify swinging assets towards Bangladesh, particularly when there was still this complacency about Bangladesh. That has begun to change. Greater attention has been paid to Bangladesh due to the rise in Islamist militancy, its imperiled democracy, and because there has been no serious sustained Indo-Pakistan crisis since 2002.

However, in my view, on the issue of the increasing profile of the Bangladesh, most governments have been insouciant and even hopeful that the army will succeed in its objectives of creating independent electoral commission and anti-corruption commission, reasserting the independence of the judiciary and in promulgating a reasonably accurate voters list. In other words, the ends will justify the means. But it is becoming increasingly clear that the army does not have an exit strategy. This is disconcerting.

What are the stakes for the United States?

Bangladesh is one of the most populous Muslim countries in the world, with more than 147 million people—the vast majority of whom are Muslim. It’s situated in a very bad neighborhood. It borders Burma and it neighbors the insurgency-prone northeast of India. Narcotics, drug running, weapons trafficking and people smuggling and trafficking are widespread problems. India would already say that Bangladesh has become an Islamist terrorist threat. The bottom line is that no one—especially most Bangladeshis—wants to see Bangladesh become a place where Islamist militants can take refuge and act with impunity at home or abroad. Moreover, given the role of the Bangladesh army in this military-backed technocracy, the U.S. and the international community should be concerned that Bangladesh’ fragile democracy is ever-more imperiled.

What can be done now?

Given that the Bangladesh army appears to be in charge, the international community must act cohesively and decisively to compel Dhaka to lift the state of emergency, withdraw the army from the political arena, and establish a specific date for elections with appropriate electoral reforms such as a legitimate voters’ list and EC. These are immediate changes that are required before any long-term—but necessary—structural changes can be considered.

Admittedly, governments are not optimistic about the tools at their disposal to encourage better outcomes in Bangladesh. However, there are tools that can be used more effectively. First, Bangladesh is responsive to public exhortation. The international community should consider abandoning popular aphorisms to describe Bangladesh as a “moderate, Muslim democracy.” Increasingly the evidence does not suggest that this label is deserved.

Key countries like the U.S. and the U.K. could get greater leverage by being willing to make some forms of assistance conditional, especially if there was greater donor coordination to do so. While Bangladesh is not an aid-dependent country, it does receive substantial international aid. Second, some forms of assistance to Bangladesh’s security forces are subject to the provisions of the Leahy Amendment, which precludes such aid when there is credible evidence of human rights abuses. Vocal discussions of the Leahy requirements with Bangladeshi civilian and military officials may be a useful tool to exert pressure on these institutions who value U.S. training, equipment and other forms of assistance.

Third, market access could be leveraged as well. Bangladesh’s economy is sustained by critical exports such as textiles and shrimp. In principal, market access can be expanded as a positive inducement or restricted as a punitive measure. In practice this is difficult in the United States as this requires congressional action. The task is finding punitive measures that punish the right people—not ordinary Bangladeshis. That’s hard to do. The Millennium Challenge Account in principle offers some hope but it is virtually impossible for a country like Bangladesh to quality for the MCA.

Both the United States and the Commonwealth, of which Bangladesh is a member, must apply punitive measures if the army undertakes extra-constitutional actions such as declaring martial law. Currently, the state of emergency is within the bounds of the constitution. These sanctions will likely serve as a deterrent to the army taking bolder moves. The Bangladesh army personnel value their lucrative participation in U.N. peacekeeping missions and many fear that government missteps could put at risk this important source of revenue for participants. Ironically, there are few means to exploit this fear because the U.N. has no means to restrict Bangladeshi participation on these grounds.

The problem is that the international community and the United States have not been willing—or perhaps even able—to find more effective means to leverage influence. This pessimism may be unwarranted. One could argue that it was international actions by election monitoring missions and the UN as well as the public and private efforts of the various diplomatic missions in Dhaka that brought about Iajuddin Ahmed’s decision to step down and postpone elections. While this sequence of events did avert some bloodshed, it has cast the army into the undesirable role of backstopping and even overseeing the government.

The task at hand will be to use this cluster of events as an opportunity to encourage the mainstream political parties to begin a process of resolving the fundamental political issues that have fostered this impasse and that, without proper redress, will threaten future crises.

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of USIP, which does not advocate specific policy positions.