Bangladeshi
President Postpones Election And Imposes
State Of Emergency
By Jake Skeers
16 January 2007
World
Socialist Web
In
a desperate bid to end weeks of political turmoil, Bangladesh’s
president Iajuddin Ahmed announced last Thursday that he was postponing
national elections due on January 22, imposing a state of emergency
and stepping aside as head of the interim caretaker government.
The president had been the
target of weeks of protests by opposition parties, which accused him
of being a stooge of the ruling Bangladesh National Party (BNP). The
main opposition party—the Awami League—had demanded that
Iajuddin Ahmed step aside and the election be postponed to enable the
drawing up of accurate electoral rolls. According to the opposition,
the current list contains more than 10 million fake or deceased voters.
On Friday, the president
swore in former central bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed as the new head
of the interim government to hold power until after the election. At
this stage, it is not clear when the poll will be held or whether the
postponement is strictly constitutional. The BNP-led government stepped
aside in October, at the end of its five-year term, paving the way for
elections within 90 days as required by the country’s constitution.
Following the announcement
of a state of emergency, the security forces immediately clamped a curfew
and strict media censorship on the country. Amid widespread criticism
and open flouting by newspapers of the ban on political news, both measures
were eased. The information ministry is, however, still urging the media
not to write anything provocative.
Since November, the country
has been wracked by mass opposition protests and transport blockades
over alleged electoral corruption. At least 45 people have been killed
in violent clashes with police and security forces. On January 3, the
Awami League and its allies announced their intention to proceed with
a poll boycott, opening up the prospect of continuing political upheaval.
A three-day blockade last
week cut off Dhaka, the country’s capital of 10 million people,
from the rest of the country and prevented most exports from leaving
the port of Chittagong. Protesters in Dhaka also attempted to lay siege
to the presidential residence. The president provocatively called out
the military and gave the army sweeping powers of arrest. Hundreds of
opposition activists were locked up.
With less than two weeks
to go to the poll, the European Union and the US scrapped or scaled
back plans to send election monitoring teams. Last Thursday the UN announced
that it was suspending technical assistance for the election. Later
the same day, the president made his decision to step aside.
There is no doubt that the
BNP and its allies were preparing to try and rig the election. But the
posturing of the Awami League and other opposition parties as principled
defenders of democracy is absurd. The election boycott was simply a
tactical manoeuvre aimed at forcing elections under more advantageous
conditions, or laying the basis for a legal challenge after the poll.
The opposition announced a boycott then called it off on December 24,
only to reimpose it on January 3.
One of the Awami League’s
allies is the Janata Party led by former military dictator General Hossain
Mohammad Ershad, who took power in a coup in 1982 and ruled until 1990
riding roughshod over basic democratic rights. In fact, the exclusion
of Ershad from the election may well have motivated the opposition’s
decision to reimpose the boycott. Election officials, accused by the
opposition of being BNP stooges, barred Ershad from running, citing
ongoing court cases relating to 10-year-old corruption charges.
At the ceremony last Friday
to swear in the new interim government head, Awami League leader Sheikh
Hasina and other opposition party leaders were all present, but the
BNP’s Khaleda Zia was pointedly not present. Her absence may well
indicate that the crisis is far from over.
There is widespread alienation
among voters from all the major parties. The BNP’s apparent resort
to rigging the voter roll, stacking the Electoral Commission and military
provocations is due to fears of a voter backlash against its failure
to address the country’s deepening social crisis. Equally, the
Awami League’s focus on the BNP’s corruption is a useful
diversion from its own previous failures in office.
Despite the bitter rivalry
between Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, the parties have virtually the
same policies. Zia was prime minister from 1991 and 1996 and from 2001
to 2006. Hasina held the post from 1996 to 2001. These governments have
implemented the demands of the International Monetary Fund, the World
Bank and the Asian Development Bank for market reforms that led to the
increased exploitation of the working class and growing social inequality.
A survey conducted last June
and reported in the Daily Star found that only 23 percent of people
intended to vote for the Awami League and 16 percent for the BNP. A
huge 53 percent said they did not know which party they would support.
In a corresponding survey in 1999, the Awami League received 39 percent,
the BNP 30 percent and only 11 percent were undecided.
Political analyst and former
MP, Nazim Kamran Choudhury, commented that the voters were “disenchanted
with the whole political system.” He continued: “For the
first time in our history, with elections less then six months away,
more than half of the voters are undecided, i.e., not sure who to vote
for. This indeed is an indictment of our political parties.”
Behind this alienation is
a deepening social divide. Between 1999 and 2004, the percentage of
national income controlled by the poorest 10 percent of the population
declined from 1.7 percent to 1.5 percent. Over the same period, the
richest 10 percent increased its share from 33.9 percent to 36.5 percent.
Thus the income differential between the poorest and the richest deciles
increased from 20 times in 1999 to 25 times in 2004. The corresponding
figure for 1995-96 was 16 times.
According to the 2004 Poverty
Monitoring Survey Report from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS),
the poorest Bangladeshi households experienced an absolute decline in
income. The results indicated that the real income of poor households
decreased by 3.56 percent from 1999 to 2004, while that of the “non-poor”
rose by 13.36 percent.
Any decline in income is
devastating for the average Bangladeshi. According to the World Bank,
82.8 percent of the population live on less than $US2 per day and 36
percent live on less than $1 per day. Some 48 percent of children under
five are underweight and 43 percent have stunted growth. The BBS survey
showed that 42.1 percent of the population was not receiving the basic
Food Energy Intake (FEI) in 2004.
Widespread rural poverty
has forced many to move to cities such as Dhaka and Chittagong in search
of work. The number of landless people in rural areas has increased
from 28 percent in 1972 to around 50 percent today. In the last decade,
the slums of Dhaka have swelled from 1.5 million to 3.4 million people.
The free market policies
of the Awami League and BNP have been designed to attract foreign investment
to exploit the country’s cheap labour. In particular, the output
of Bangladesh’s textile factories, which pay the lowest wages
in the world, has increased by five or six times over the past 15 years.
Eighty percent of Bangladesh’s export income now derives from
textile and garments, shipped mainly to the US and Europe.
Exploitation in the country’s
sweatshops is intensifying, as Bangladesh faces competition from China
and India, particularly since the end of the international multi-fibre
agreement on export quotas at the start of 2005. One indicator is the
industrial death toll—hundreds of workers have been killed over
the past three years in factory fires and building collapses.
Another indicator is the
increased use of child labour. A survey conducted by UNICEF and the
Bangladesh Ministry of Labor and Manpower released in 2004 found that
there are 7 million child workers in Bangladesh, including a large number
in hazardous industries. One fifth of the total workforce consists of
children aged 15 or under.
The BBS and International
Labor Organisation surveyed children aged 5 to 17 working in the five
worst industries—welding, auto workshops, road transport, battery
recharging and recycling—and street children. It found that 149,000
children in these sectors worked an average of nine hours a day. The
majority of those questioned said they worked six or seven days a week
for little or no wages. Children recharging and filling batteries had
an average monthly wage of 313 taka ($US5.30). Street children earned
an average monthly wage of just 288 taka ($US4.85) by collecting old
paper, street selling, shining shoes, portering or begging. Those in
the transport sector received an average 1,417 taka ($US24) a month.
All the major parties in
Bangladesh are responsible for this worsening social crisis. Whenever
the election is held and whatever the outcome, the next government will
continue to implement economic policies for the benefit of business
at the expense of working people.
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