Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as soon as joined her rivals in a battle to revive democracy however her lengthy reign in energy has been marked by arrests of opposition leaders, crackdowns on free speech and suppression of dissent.
Hasina, 76, received a fourth straight time period and fifth total in energy by sweeping Sunday’s basic election, which was boycotted by the primary opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) for the second time within the final three polls.
Hasina branded the primary opposition celebration a “terrorist organisation”.
The daughter of the nation’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, Hasina was lucky to have been visiting Europe when most of her relations had been assassinated in a army coup in 1975.
Born in 1947 in southwestern Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, Hasina was the eldest of 5 youngsters. She graduated with a level in Bengali literature from Dhaka University in 1973 and gained political expertise as a go-between for her father and his pupil followers.
She returned to Bangladesh from India, the place she lived in exile, in 1981 and later joined palms with political foe, BNP chief and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, to guide a preferred rebellion for democracy that toppled army ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad from energy in 1990.
But the alliance with Zia didn’t final lengthy and the bitter and deep-rooted rivalry between the 2 ladies, usually known as the “battling begums”, went on to dominate Bangladeshi politics for many years.
Hasina first served a time period as prime minister in 1996 however misplaced to Zia 5 years later. The pair had been then imprisoned on corruption fees in 2007 after a coup by a military-backed authorities.
The fees had been dropped and so they had been free to contest an election the next 12 months. Hasina received in a landslide and has been in energy ever since.
As time went on, she grew to become more and more autocratic and her rule has been marked by mass arrests of political opponents and activists, compelled disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
The 78-year-old Zia in the meantime is in ailing well being and confined to hospital after corruption fees noticed her sentenced to a 17-year jail time period in 2018. Top BNP leaders have been despatched behind bars whereas Zia’s eldest son and inheritor obvious Tarique Rahman is in exile in Britain.
Rights teams have warned of a digital one-party rule by Hasina’s Awami League.
Hasina refused BNP calls for to resign and permit a impartial authority to run the election, accusing the opposition of instigating antigovernment protests which have rocked Dhaka since late October and killed no less than 14 folks.
Both Hasina and her rivals have accused their opponents of making an attempt to create chaos and violence to thwart political peace and jeopardise the democracy that has but to take agency root within the South Asian nation of 170 million folks.
Hasina mentioned she didn’t must show the credibility of the election to anybody. “What is important is if the people of Bangladesh will accept this election.”
Asif Nazrul, professor of legislation at Dhaka University, advised Al Jazeera Hasina is a “shrewd” politician however historical past will bear in mind her as a frontrunner “who stayed in power through repression, not popular mandate”.
“Never in the history of this region has a politician stayed in power for such a long period despite lacking people’s mandate,” he mentioned. “In fact, I would call her unpopular now as [Sunday’s] turnout has proven what percentage of people’s support Hasina and her party has.”
Nazrul mentioned Hasina has “set up a milestone before the world on how a leader can establish complete autocracy in a nation in the garb of democracy”.
“But that’s not a legacy one should be proud of,” he mentioned.
Mixed legacy of 15-year rule
Hasina has been praised by supporters for main Bangladesh via a exceptional financial increase, largely on the again of the largely feminine manufacturing facility workforce powering its garment export trade.
Bangladesh, one of many world’s poorest international locations when it gained independence from Pakistan in 1971, has grown a median of greater than 6 % annually since 2009.
Poverty has plummeted and greater than 95 % of the nation’s 170 million folks now have access to electrical energy, with per capita earnings overtaking India in 2021.
Hasina additionally acquired worldwide approval for opening Bangladesh’s doorways to lots of of 1000’s of Rohingya refugees fleeing a 2017 army crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar.
She has been hailed for a decisive crackdown on hardline Muslim teams after 5 homegrown extremists stormed a Dhaka cafe in style with Western expatriates and killed 22 folks in 2016.
But Hasina’s intolerance in the direction of dissent has given rise to resentment at home and expressions of concern from the Western powers.
Five prime Muslim leaders and a senior opposition determine had been executed over the previous decade after convictions for crimes in opposition to humanity dedicated in the course of the nation’s brutal 1971 liberation battle.
Instead of therapeutic the injuries of that battle, the trials triggered mass protests and lethal clashes. Her opponents branded the trials a farce, saying they had been a politically motivated train designed to silence dissent.
The United States imposed sanctions on an elite department of Bangladesh’s safety forces and 7 of its prime officers over fees of widespread human rights abuses.
Meanwhile, the economic system has additionally slowed sharply because the Russia-Ukraine battle pushed up costs of gas and meals imports, forcing Bangladesh to show final 12 months to the International Monetary Fund for a $4.7bn bailout.
Inflation was 9.5 % in November, one of many highest in many years, and tackling will probably be one in every of Hasina’s greatest challenges in her subsequent time period whereas the highlight might be on how she offers with upholding democracy.
Munshi Faiz Ahmed, former director-general of Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies, a state-funded assume tank on safety and strategic points, known as Hasina “perhaps the most strategic political maneuverer in Bangladesh’s history”.
Ahmed, additionally a former Bangladeshi ambassador to China, advised Al Jazeera that one must be conscious of the situations during which Hasina operated within the final decade: a large inhabitants cramped in a small land with scant mineral assets, a divided and opinionated public, and steady stress from the worldwide and regional powers.
“She skilfully handled all those factors and led Bangladesh to a position of prosperity and importance. As a politician, she is more competent than anyone else in recent history,” he mentioned.
In the aftermath of a tainted election, Ahmed mentioned Hasina had been profitable in tackling Western stress to date and on the similar time was capable of set up good relations with China, India and Russia – all of which have backed her authorities.
“It’s no longer a unipolar world, it’s rather multipolar. So, I don’t think her government will face any problem now.”
Faisal Mahmud contributed from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
