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Bangladesh: Fracas Over Reforms Or Elections – OpEd

Bangladesh's interim government headed by Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus is facing a growing challenge by leading political parties who have opposed his plans to delay parliament polls. Backed by student agitators and radical Islamist parties who installed Yunus after ousting the Awami League government, the Nobel laureate has said he needs time to push through reforms he considers " esserntial for the future of democracy " in Bangladesh. But both the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ( BNP) have said reforms is best left to an elected government. Sensing a clear chance of winning the parliament elections if it is held soon, the BNP leadership is now at loggerheads with Yunus, the students leaders and the Islamist parties backing him. The BNP clearly want elections within the next few months and are uncomfortable with Yunus pitching for polls in mid-2026 after completing the reforms. The BNP , like the Awami League, has raised a basic question over Yunus' locus standi to pursue an agenda for reforms. Its leaders argue that any comprehensive reforms should be carried out by an elected parliament and not an interim government which has a tenuous constitutional basis. On the other hand, radical  parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami with a unconcealed agenda to turn Bangladesh into an Islamic state have backed Yunus on his plans for reforms before elections. The Jamaat, which is yet to apologise for supporting the Pakistani genocide during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, has gone all out to push the Yunus administration to restore bilateral relations with Pakistan after the ouster of the Hasina-led Awami League government in August. It sees in the current political climate a huge opportunity to undo the secular-linguistic edifice of Bengali nationalism and supplant it with a radical Islamist ideology clearly aimed at undermining minority and gender rights .   The student leaders, mostly educated in religious seminaries, have unhesistatingly jumped into the Islamist bandwagon with calls to replace the 1972 secular constitution with one driven by Shariat laws. One of them, Sargis Alam, described the Jamaat-e-Islami student front , Islamic Chatra Shibir,  as "comrades" in the oust-Hasina campaign while another student leader Hasnat Abdullah has openly challenged the BNP's push for early elections. "So many young people have not died to see one fascist dispensation replaced by another," Hasnat told mediapersons in response to the BNP's call for early elections. Bangladesh's leading constitutional expert Barrister Tania Amir says  the student leaders , with Jamaat-e-Islami backing, have definite plans to undo the key features of the 1972 constitution with those emanating from hardline Islamist ideology. "That is why they want much time because they want a new Constitution in place before any election is held," Amir told the Federal in an interview.  "The West is yet to see through the plans to hijack the democracy movement to create an Islamist state in Bangladesh."  "The liberal facade of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is smartly used by the Islamic parties, so long marginal players in post-independence Bangladesh,  to fool the West about their real mission.  The reforms they plan are to create a theocracy and not a democracy," said Selim Mahmud, a law professor in Dhaka university heading the Awami League's Information Office.  The BNP, which backed the student agitation to get rid of its bete noise Awami League,  seems to have now seen through these plans. Their leaders have firmly opposed dumping the 1972 Constitution and challenging the legacy of the Liberation War. They are downplaying their past alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami as "merely for political convenience and not one based on ideological compatibility."   The BNP is a centrist party founded by military dictator Gen Ziaur Rahman who had fought in the 1971 Liberation War. It realises any surge in religiosity will help Islamic parties like Jamaat . On the other hand, with the Awami League on the backfoot, the BNP clearly fancies usurping the Liberation War legacy by highlighting Zia's declaration of independence on 27 March 1971. The US , which strongly backed the oust-Hasina movement and the Yunus-led interim government,  may change course. Outgoing US ambassdor in India, Eric Garcetti, called for early elections in Bangladesh to "restore the democratic process" during a press conference in Kolkata. Garcetti called on India to work closely with US to "strengthen democracy in Bangladesh" in what many feel is a subtle appeal to Delhi to cooperate with the Yunus administration.  India has not only sheltered ousted PM Sheikh Hasina but recently extended her residential permit after the Yunus administration called for her extradition to stand trial in dozens of cases filed against her. Delhi is clearly worried over the Yunus government releasing convicted Islamist terrorists like Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) chief Jashimuddin Rahmani.  So if the BNP raises the ante over early elections and the Awami League echoes the same, Delhi may not only support it but try influencing the incoming Trump administration to push for early elections.