Today, Bangladesh’s political system remains fragile. In its recently published 2007 democracy index, the Economist Intelligence Unit categorized Bangladesh as one of 54 “flawed democracies” worldwide on the basis of several indicators, including electoral politics, functioning of government, and civil liberties. But what is U.S. interest in this resource-scarce, small, and impoverished country? And why would the U.S. lend it approximately $60 million in aid annually? For one thing, Bangladesh’s dense population of over 140 million is about 90% Muslim. With its efforts to foster democracy in Iraq looking increasingly disastrous, the U.S. hopes to be able to point to Bangladesh, a “moderate Muslim democracy,” as a success. But as parliamentary elections scheduled for January 2007 approached, the fabric of Bangladesh’s democracy showed signs of fraying.

The phrase “free and fair elections” is synonymous with effective demonstration of just how far a country’s democracy has come. After all, a nation establishes the legitimacy of its democratic institutions through its electoral processes and accumulated track record of peaceful transfers of power from defeated incumbents to newly elected leaders. But in Bangladesh, elections tend to cause immense civil unrest. Leaders of the two main political parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Awami League (AL), invoke countrywide hartals (general strikes), which paralyze Bangladesh’s already delicate economy for days or weeks at a time. Bangladesh’s elections are also violent. During the 2001 election cycle, nearly 400 people were reported killed and over 17,000 injured, mainly in street clashes between supporters of rival parties. In advance of the January 2007 polls, 44 election-related deaths and hundreds of injuries had already been recorded by early December 2006.

Indecision 2007: Bangladeshi Electoral Politics
The mechanics of holding free and fair elections in Bangladesh are based on the premise that impartial individuals will manage a “non-party” caretaker government and oversee polling during an interim period between elected regimes. The constitution requires dissolution of parliament at the end of its five-year term, with the prime minister handing over power to a Chief Adviser of the caretaker government. In addition to discharging normal government functions, the Chief Adviser, together with a council of advisers, must aid a Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commission in their efforts to ensure free, fair and impartial elections within 90 days from the end of the previous elected government’s tenure. The Election Commission establishes a polling schedule and develops electoral rolls of eligible voters.

However impartial this unique system is by design, in practice Bangladeshi politics are heavily polarized between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League, making it extremely difficult to find election officials perceived as neutral by both sides. Khaleda Zia, leader of the BNP, completed her five-year term as prime minister on October 28, 2006. Immediately after she stepped down, the country found itself embroiled in controversy. The BNP-led four-party coalition and the AL-led opposition fourteen-party alliance could not agree on the neutrality of the proposed Chief Adviser, CEC, and several members of the Election Commission. President Iajuddin Ahmed fueled the crisis further by ignoring constitutional directives and naming himself Chief Adviser, an act unacceptable to the AL because he had been a political appointee of Khaleda Zia’s.

Another major point of contention has been the list of eligible voters. The AL alleged that the BNP-biased Election Commission loaded the voter list with duplicate and fictitious names to tip the balance in favor of the BNP coalition. The U.S.-based independent National Democratic Institute (NDI) reported finding 12.2 million excess or duplicate names in a pre-election study released in early December 2006. NDI also asserted that a list containing names of 93 million voters (about two-thirds of the entire population) “strains credibility.” Soon after the NDI announced its findings and little more than a month before the polls, the Election Commission initiated the tedious process of revising the voter list.

Unfortunately, the political wrangling associated with electoral politics is being played out in the streets. The AL has sponsored persistent demonstrations since October, and even threatened to boycott the elections. The threat of military intervention also looms. In December, Chief Adviser Ahmed deployed the army throughout Bangladesh to keep the peace. In a country that has witnessed three military coups and 19 failed coup attempts, fears of military adventurism are not unfounded. On a positive note, Bangladesh has experienced such crises before and come through with its democracy intact. For example, the AL boycotted general elections held in February 1996. The BNP won those uncontested polls, but during the ensuing political agitation the caretaker system was implemented. Elections were held again in June 1996, and were generally viewed as free and fair.

The Blood Feud of the Political Elites
The ideologies of the BNP and AL are arguably not very different. The BNP is generally more conservative, embraces Bangladesh’s Muslim identity more emphatically, and tilts its foreign policy orientation towards Pakistan. The AL is left-leaning, secularist, and perceived as aligned more closely with India. Yet, each side is sufficiently centrist to garner sizable portions of the electorate. Personal politics are what really set them apart. The animosity can be characterized as no less than a blood feud.

The genesis of that blood feud runs deep because AL leader Sheikh Hasina—like Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister—believes Zia’s late husband Ziaur Rahman was complicit in the assassination of her close relatives. In 1975, a group of army officers murdered Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and several family members. Sheikh Mujib, called the Bangabandhu (friend of Bengal) had spearheaded Bangladesh’s liberation from Pakistan and subsequently became the country’s first president and prime minister. After his murder, Ziaur Rahman declared himself president in 1977 and took the controversial step of rehabilitating Mujib’s assassins. Ziaur Rahman was himself assassinated in 1981.
Perhaps due to the viciousness of this blood feud, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia seem all the more willing to adopt uncompromising stances and play a high-stakes game of political brinksmanship. Their actions betray a willingness to sacrifice the country’s economic health to gain political advantage.

The Specter of Islamist Extremism
Bangladesh’s governance problems and venomous politics have created an increasing amount of space for Islamic fundamentalism. Fundamentalism’s growing appeal is influential enough that the BNP found it politically expedient to include two Islamist parties in its four-party coalition for the 2001 elections. The support for those parties was not statistically insignificant: together they won 20 of the 300 seats in parliament. Both have platforms expressly calling for the eventual dissolution of the country’s democracy in favor of a government based on sharia (Islamic law).
But of greater concern are the activities of Islamist extremists. Evidence of militancy has existed for some time; a Bangladeshi was one of five signatories to Osama bin Laden’s famous fatwa (edict) in 1998 declaring jihad on America and its allies. More recently within Bangladesh, a spate of attacks against secularist politicians (including an assassination attempt on Sheikh Hasina), journalists, and institutions promoting progressive democratic institutions has occurred. On August 17, 2005, over 450 bombs exploded nearly simultaneously in 63 of Bangladesh’s 64 governing districts. Leaflets were found in many of the bombing sites calling for the abrogation of Bangladesh’s constitution and installation of a sharia-based government. Although the bombings resulted in only a few fatalities, the groups that claimed responsibility—Jamaat ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB)—quickly graduated to suicide attacks. As part of an ensuing nationwide manhunt, authorities apprehended masterminds Shaikh Abdur Rahman and Siddiqul Islam, alias Bangla Bhai (brother of Bangladesh) in March 2006. Together with four other leaders of the JMB and JMJB, they were convicted and sentenced to death for involvement in a November 2005 suicide bomb attack that killed two judges. With these leaders and other JMB and JMJB operatives incarcerated, the extremist tide seems to have stemmed noticeably. But few believe the threat has dissipated entirely.

A variety of forces are therefore competing to define the country’s identity. On a grand scale, Bengali ethnicity converges and conflicts with the desire to participate in a greater Muslim ummah (brotherhood). In practical terms, these cultural negotiations tie directly to Bangladesh’s political identity. The country that emerged from Pakistan’s yoke initially emphasized secularism as a foundational concept of its democracy, in order to distance itself from the Islamic factor that aligned it with Pakistan in the 1947 partition of India. Before long, a reactionary tendency emerged that stressed Bangladesh’s Muslim identity, manifested, for example, with direct substitution in the constitution of language embracing Islam as the state religion as opposed to secularism as a state principle. Not surprisingly, the political parties tend to draw on these competing discourses in defining themselves and appealing to their respective constituencies.

Prospects for Democracy’s Survival
It bears noting that the January 2007 elections represent the growing pains of a young democracy, not a referendum on democracy itself. Despite the many problems enumerated here, Bangladesh is not simply an unqualified failure. It has a strong, established free press. The country has been experiencing annual economic growth (in GDP) of 5% or higher. The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Bangladesh’s Muhammad Yunus for his innovative microcredit programs to help the poor establish small business ventures. Initiatives like Yunus’s Grameen Bank have enabled the country to outperform other developing countries in poverty reduction and make progress on the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. These should be considered auspicious indicators of a favorable prognosis for a healthy future civil society. But it is clear that in order to ensure the continuation of democracy in Bangladesh, electoral reforms are needed. Whether the BNP and AL have the political will and long-term vision to achieve the needed compromises, implement reforms, and observe them faithfully in order to render them legitimate is not so clear. Nonetheless, they stand to lose much more than some seats in parliament by not finding the common ground necessary to strengthen Bangladesh’s democratic institutions.