April 2, 2025 7:30 am
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Is ‘minus two’ becoming a reality in Bangladesh?

Shamima Chowdhury

During the military-backed non-political Caretaker government of Bangladesh in 2007-08, the caretaker government of Dr. Fakruddin Ahmed promoted the concept of “Minus 2” formula to de-politicalize Bangladesh. They wanted to push both Sheikh Hasina, the Leader of the Awami League (AL) party and also her main rival, Begum Khaleda Zia, the leader of BNP party out of the country and out of politics. These leaders have been ruling Bangladesh for a total of 41 years due to their family legacy.

Sheikh Hasina’s father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the founder of Bangladesh. He was a chrismatic leader who suffered immensely to liberate the country. Begum Khaleda Zia is the widower of military dictator General Ziaur Rahman who ruled the country as a strong man after the murder of Sheikh Mujib and 16 members of his family including his 10-year old son.

Gen. Zia created his political party, the BNP party. The Awami League and the BNP are largest political parties in Bangladesh.

While Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur was the founder of Bangladesh, his able daughter Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is the builder of Bangladesh.

Bangladesh became one of the most promising and fastest growing economies in the world under her leadership. As the economy expanded rapidly from a $90 billion to $478 billion GDP, and achieved “developing country status from a ‘least developed’ or a LDC, both income inequality and corruption increased leading to students uprising that forced her to resign and leave the country. Now she is staying in India. After the murder of her father in 1975 coup, she took shelter in India also and lived there for six years from 1975 to 1981.

She escaped death in 1975 as she was abroad during the coup. Her father couldn’t escape death in August, 1975 but Sheikh Hasina could escape death in August, 2024. She is a survivor.

Bangladesh army chief Gen. Waqurzzaman is being blamed by both the Jamati jehadis and anti-discrimination students leaders as he sent her to India by its own military aircraft. Reportedly they planned to kill her. As against this, the AL party enthusiasts blame the Army Chief as he instead of protecting the elected constitutional head of the government forced her to leave the country.

In the 53 years of Bangladesh, the AL and the BNP leadership ruled the country for nearly 41 years. While AL is led by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib’s daughter, the BNP is led by the widower of Gen. Zia. In any election, people, rank and file, vote for them. Therefore, many Civil Society and NGO leaders plus retired officials and technocrats and media people who are deprived of leadership as they have no mass support desire an end to such politics. So they formulated “minus 2” formula. Both Hasina and Khaleda must be kicked out of the country. They failed in 2007-08 but this time, under a different context, they appeared to be successful. Hasina was kicked out on 5 August and Khaleda today on 7 January. Question is will they be allowed to return home.

Dr. Yunus, the Chief Advisor of the current Interim Government floated a political party in 2006 when he received the Nobel Prize but his party did not get people’s support and so it died. During 2007-08 caretaker government, Dr. Yunus and 3 other advisors who pursued ‘minus 2’ formula were attorney Arif Hasan, NGO leader Dr. Zillur Rahman and editor Barrister Moynul Hossain. They were all Advisers in ‘caretaker’ nonpolitical governments. Both Moynul and Arif passed away. So Yunus’s hand is weakened. Question is will he be successful to depoliticize Bangladesh?

Besides Bangladesh, politics in many countries in Asia has family legacies. For example, Gandhi family in India, Bhutto in Pakistan, Sokerno in Indonesia, Marcos in the Philippines, Bandaranaike in Sri Lanka, etc. Even in Japan and USA, example of father and son getting elected was not ruled out. Abe in Japan, Adams and Bush in USA are examples. Kennedy family in USA politics was a household name.

Although all legal cases and verdicts against Khaleda have been withdrawn, however, if the government doesn’t like her to return, those may be reactivated and reintroduced barring her return. Therefore, there is some worry amongst the BNP leadership. More so, as her son, Acting Chairman of the party, Tariq Zia is insecure of returning home because of Jamati extremists and jehadis. In addition, Dr. Yunus government is said to favor the Jamati Islam party over others and they need time to organize. Moreover, a few of his advisers belong to Jamat, a radical religious group.

In Bangladesh, the legal system is so manipulative and poor that whoever comes to power, he or she withdraw all cases even verdicts against them. Dr. Yunus is no exception. He also managed to withdraw all verdicts and cases against him. This is his greatest achievement within the last five months. His administration so far failed to improve law and order, failed to improve economic activity, failed to improve judicial system, and also failed to reduce inflation and extortion. No wonder GDP growth rate which was predicted at 7.2% by the AL government recorded only 1.8% for the last quarter and unemployment increased to 26.4 million, one of the highest, nearly 15,000 factories closed down, and poverty instead of reducing jumped by another 10 millions. FDI and even domestic investment declined and nation’s currency rate also depreciated. No wonder, the international agencies degraded the country’s credit rating.

Dr. Yunus in a recent interview confessed that he has no experience to run a government. Neither his advisers are competent enough to run it smoothly. He further added, students asked him to take the responsibility and if he cannot, he would leave and do what he had been doing. Question is, is he contemplating to step down before the economy collapses?

In fact, he is good in promoting visions and ideas. He is a good philosopher. But his ‘social business’ did not work, neither his ‘3-zeros’, and those poor ladies that borrowed micro credit from his Gramern Bank, as per studies, have become more worse off. When he received the Nobel Peace Prize award in 2006, he said, ‘poverty in future would be available only in the museums’. Unfortunately, instead of reducing, the poverty has increased to nearly 1.1 billion now.

Disclaimer:
Opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not reflect The Voice’s views. The Voice upholds free expression but isn’t responsible for content in this section.

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