Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as soon as joined her rivals in a combat 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 general in energy by sweeping Sunday’s basic election, which was boycotted by the principle opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Occasion (BNP) for the second time within the final three polls.
Hasina branded the principle 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 members of the family have been assassinated in a navy coup in 1975.
Born in 1947 in southwestern Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, Hasina was the eldest of 5 kids. She graduated with a level in Bengali literature from Dhaka College 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 fingers with political foe, BNP chief and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, to guide a preferred rebellion for democracy that toppled navy ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad from energy in 1990.
However 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 have been then imprisoned on corruption expenses in 2007 after a coup by a military-backed authorities.
The costs have been dropped and so they have 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 expenses noticed her sentenced to a 17-year jail time period in 2018. Prime 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 at the least 14 folks.
Each 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 stated she didn’t have to show the credibility of the election to anybody. “What’s necessary is that if the folks of Bangladesh will settle for this election.”
Asif Nazrul, professor of legislation at Dhaka College, instructed Al Jazeera Hasina is a “shrewd” politician however historical past will keep in mind her as a frontrunner “who stayed in energy via repression, not well-liked mandate”.
“By no means within the historical past of this area has a politician stayed in energy regardless of missing folks’s mandate,” he stated. “In actual fact, I’d name her unpopular now as [Sunday’s] turnout has confirmed what proportion of individuals’s help Hasina and her celebration has.”
Nazrul stated Hasina has “arrange a milestone earlier than the world on how a frontrunner can set up full autocracy in a nation within the garb of democracy”.
“However that’s not a legacy one needs to be pleased with,” he stated.
Combined legacy of 15-year rule
Hasina has been praised by supporters for main Bangladesh via a exceptional financial growth, 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 mean of greater than 6 p.c every year since 2009.
Poverty has plummeted and greater than 95 p.c of the nation’s 170 million folks now have entry to electrical energy, with per capita earnings overtaking India in 2021.
Hasina additionally obtained worldwide approval for opening Bangladesh’s doorways to lots of of 1000’s of Rohingya refugees fleeing a 2017 navy crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar.
She has been hailed for a decisive crackdown on hardline Muslim teams after 5 homegrown extremists stormed a Dhaka cafe well-liked with Western expatriates and killed 22 folks in 2016.
However Hasina’s intolerance in direction of dissent has given rise to resentment at house and expressions of concern from the Western powers.
5 prime Muslim leaders and a senior opposition determine have been executed over the previous decade after convictions for crimes towards humanity dedicated throughout the nation’s brutal 1971 liberation battle.
As a substitute of therapeutic the injuries of that battle, the trials triggered mass protests and lethal clashes. Her opponents branded the trials a farce, saying they have been a politically motivated train designed to silence dissent.
The USA imposed sanctions on an elite department of Bangladesh’s safety forces and 7 of its prime officers over expenses of widespread human rights abuses.
In the meantime, the financial 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 Worldwide Financial Fund for a $4.7bn bailout.
Inflation was 9.5 p.c in November, one of many highest in a long time, and tackling it is going to be one in all 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 Worldwide and Strategic Research, a state-funded assume tank on safety and strategic points, known as Hasina “maybe probably the most strategic political maneuverer in Bangladesh’s historical past”.
Ahmed, additionally a former Bangladeshi ambassador to China, instructed Al Jazeera that one needs to be aware of the situations by 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 dealt with all these elements and led Bangladesh to a place of prosperity and significance. As a politician, she is extra competent than anybody else in latest historical past,” he stated.
Within the aftermath of a tainted election, Ahmed stated Hasina had been profitable in tackling Western stress to date and on the similar time was in a position to set up good relations with China, India and Russia – all of which have backed her authorities.
“It’s now not a unipolar world, it’s reasonably multipolar. So, I don’t assume her authorities will face any downside now.”
Faisal Mahmud contributed from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
