Bangladesh elections come amid concerns over democracy eroding | DW News

Bangladesh elections come amid concerns over democracy eroding | DW News

Now to Bangladesh which will hold parliamentary elections on Sunday opposition and rights groups say the vote can be neither free nor fair and they accuse the current government of carrying out a brutal Crackdown arbitrarily jailing thousands of opposition Party leaders and activists the longest serving female prime minister in the world Sheik Hina

Has been Bangladesh’s head of government since 2009 the leader of the ruling awami League party will further consolidate her power after the elections on January 7 the main opposition Bangladesh nationalist party or BNP is buycotting the contest thousands of BNP leaders members and supporters have been jailed

On what the party says are politically motivated charges the government faces accusations of brutally crushing protests it denies allegations and blames the BNB for arson attacks aiming to undermine the government human rights groups and activists are warning about the erosion of democracy under Hina but the powerful prime minister is undeterred one reason

Is influential neighbor India the fastest growing economy in the region India holds considerable political and diplomatic clout over Daka in the past couple of years our relationship on all important M has grown stronger today Bangladesh is India’s biggest development partner development partner Modi also sees Bangladesh as a business Ally and

Important for its security especially to contain the threat of terrorism in its Northeastern states India says security detoriated there when the BNP was in charge another powerful partner is China it is heavily investing in infrastructure and defense projects in Bangladesh taka’s hunger for development is helping China expand its footprint in

The Indo Pacific a goal Russia is pursuing too it is investing in energy projects Russian president spoke during the inauguration of a russian-backed nuclear power plant Bangladesh is our tested Ally and partner our relations are built on the base of mutual respect equality and benefits China Russia and India have

Largely stayed silent on European and US criticism especially from the American Administration over hina’s human rights record the US state department announced visa restrictions in September on anyone undermining the electoral process in Bangladesh with regional powers on on its side shik Casina is shrugging off any criticism of how she is handling

Things at home let’s look at this with Michael koulman who is the south Asia expert and deputy director of the Asia program at the Wilson Center in Washington DC welcome to DW so how much credibility will Sunday’s elections have if they’re being boycotted by the main opposition

Party well let’s be clear uh whenever the top opposition party in an election is not participating in the election you can’t say it’s a credible election now uh Bangladesh’s ruling party will say well look we didn’t prevent the BNP from participating we didn’t ban it and

That’s true but you know we need to understand the conditions that contributed to the BNP decision not to run essentially a fear that the election would not be credible and that it would be rigged uh not to mention in the last few weeks as your report noted before

The BNP had been hit hard very hard by uh by crackdowns and I’ll say this that the BNP boycott uh really helps the aami league not just because it will most certainly win but now you can’t really accuse the aami league of rigging the election you know if the aami league

Were to win 95% of the vote you can’t accuse it of stealing votes if it’s essentially running against itself right so what does this tell us then about the state of Bangladesh’s democracy I would argue that the election is a pivotal test for democracy in Bangladesh the last two national

Elections in 2014 and especially 2018 were viewed by many in the International Community as not free and fair and I think that if this third consecutive election if a third consecutive election is judged in that way as well with the aami league coming back again for a

Fourth term um third term pardon me a fourth term then you know that could mean that many outside Bangladesh in particular and also inside the country will view the country as something that’s approximating a onep party State and I also think that there are key implications for some Western countries

Especially the US which may well decide to review their future relations with a government in Bangladesh that they believe has not held free and fair elections and we’ll take the US example what does the US have that Bangladesh wants why should Bangladesh care what the US

Says well I mean uh Bangladesh uh must recognize does recognize that the US is a top trade partner it’s the top uh destination for Bangladesh’s garment exports as well as Bangladesh’s exports on the whole so I think that the trade relationship is very important for for Bangladesh a country that’s enjoyed

Significant levels of economic growth uh including under the the uh the shik Cen Administration so I think that the commercial partnership is enough to make Bangladesh recognized how important the relationship was with the us but not important enough to prompt Bangladesh to to actually heed the pressure that’s

Come from the US government over the last uh year or so for a free and fair election I think that that pressure from the US has has had very limited success and so how might Russia and or China uh fill any Gap left by the

US well I think that we’ve seen all the key players uh in the region China as well as India and Russia for that matter have uh strengthened relations with Bangladesh and big way they have a very strong Comfort level with the current government and of course the US is on

The other side of that but I don’t necessarily think that even if the election is regarded as not free and fair um and even if the US decides perhaps to scale down its relations with Bangladesh in a way that doesn’t mean that the US will disappear from the

Scene the US wants to have a good relationship with Bangladesh it sees Bangladesh is a key player and it’s broader Indo Pacific Vision it wants to try to push back against Chinese thank you as well we’ll leave it there thank you so much Michael koulman from the the Wilson Center thank you

Bangladesh will hold parliamentary elections on Sunday. Opposition and rights groups say the vote can be neither free nor fair – and accuse the current government of carrying out a brutal crackdown, arbitrarily jailing thousands of opposition party leaders and activists.

Chapters:
0:00 Background
7:07 Michael Kugelmann, South Asia expert at Wilson Center

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