Bangladesh Schedules Elections But Political Crisis Continues

By M.M. Ali

Bangladesh, a country of more than 120 million impoverished people, is part of the Asian subcontinent, whose over one billion inhabitants have a per capita income of around $375 per year. Besides the poor socio-economic indicators it shares with neighbors like India, Nepal and Pakistan, Bangladesh happens to be in the lower terrain of the Ganges plain and is visited by cyclones and floods each year. Thousands of acres of cultivable land are swept away by such natural disasters, and hundreds of villages with thousands of people just disappear from the surface of the earth every monsoon season.

The country that now is Bangladesh was carved out of the subcontinent's political map to form the eastern wing of newly created Pakistan in August 1947. However, in December 1971, the area severed itself from Pakistan to become the independent state of Bangladesh. Although culturally Bangladeshis are close to the people of India's West Bengal and they have retained many of the social characteristics of the Hindus, the great majority of the Bangladeshis are staunch, practicing Muslims.

The Former East Pakistan

Between 1947 and 1971, East Pakistan, as Bangladesh then was known, had serious economic disputes with rulers based in Islamabad in West Pakistan. Nor were Bangladesh's economic problems solved with independence. Even on the political front, the country's problems have been heart-rending. The founder of the country, Shaikh Mujibur Rahman, was brutally murdered within months of independence. Since then there have been bloody coups and more political assassinations. The present prime minister, Khaleda Zia, is the widow of an assassinated former president. The opposition leader, Hasina Shaikh, is the daughter of the late Shaikh Mujibur Rahman.

Just as yesterday's assassinations cast a long shadow over today's politics, graft and corruption have the capability of seeping not only into areas of prosperity, but also into countries striken by poverty. Such graft cannot be justified, but it can be explained in aphorisms. The smaller the pie, the larger the hands. The larger the need, the smaller the conscience.

The combined opposition in the National Assembly of Bangladesh walked out of the parliament some 16 months ago, protesting against alleged fraud in the by-elections. Cases were filed in the courts, mass demonstrations were held, and at one stage the entire opposition bloc threatened to resign from the Assembly.

Led by Hasina, the opposition asked the president to dissolve the parliament and call for general elections. After a long stalemate, the president finally has done so, ordering that general elections be held by March 1996. That, incidentally, also is the time when the term of Khaleda Zia's government was scheduled to end.

The political crisis has not ended. The opposition wants a non-partisan interim government to be formed between now and March 1996 to ensure fair elections. It is doubtful, however, if the president will appoint an interim government and ask Khaleda to step down. It therefore is possible that Hasina may call for a boycott of the elections and the political crisis may then persist and even deepen.

"Many of the newly independent developing countries are fledgling democracies and perhaps need more time to attain political maturity," Bangladeshi Ambassador to the United States Humayun Kabir told the Washington Report. "We regret our inexperience. This may be described as our teething period. What is a mere 25 years in a nation's history? It took the West over 200 years to get to where it is now."

The Bangladeshi ambassador expressed confidence that his country gradually would resolve its political problems. He was equally upbeat on the recent socio-economic achievements of Bangladesh. While most economies in the developing world have been growing at an arithmetical rate, Ambassador Kabir said, populations have been increasing at a geometrical pace, thereby neutralizing the already slow economic progress. The problems that contribute to such dismal economic performance are illiteracy, poor nutrition and health conditions, he said. Quoting from recent World Bank and United Nations reports, he noted that Bangladesh has successfully brought its population growth rate to below 2 percent, and is concentrating now on increasing the literacy rate, particularly among women where the problem is more severe.

Human Resource Developments

"These are no mean achievements," Ambassador Kabir said. "We have managed to get the support of even the powerful religious groups in our family planning program, and we have introduced mass education projects in the most remote villages, breaking age-old taboos. The government has moved with equal force in health and other human resource development fields."

The ambassador provided the Washington Report with statistics compiled by his embassy which closely match those released by international lending institutions. The embassy report asserts that steps have been taken to transform the country into a market-oriented economy. Structural adjustments and macro-stabilization measures are showing positive results. "In FY 1993-94, GDP at current prices rose by 9.2 percent, which marked a significant recovery from a low growth rate of 4.6 percent in 1992-93," the embassy report said.

Although the economic picture that is emerging in Bangladesh is encouraging, the country's woes are far from over. Bangladesh still is one of the poorest countries in the world. If natural calamities do not wash away its hopes and ambitions, political turmoil can arrest its current economic growth. Judging by the country's brief history, both remain strong possibilities.

M.M. Ali is a professor at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, DC.