Bangladesh: Here Are Signs Of Growing Differences Between The BNP And Mohammad Yunus Government

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which has inarguably emerged as the largest political party in the country after the August uprising in the country, has opposed a proposed ban on its arch-rival Awami League (AL). 

Many in the present interim government headed by Mohammad Yunus, especially the student leaders who led the uprising, have demanded a ban on the Awami League for its alleged tyranny over the last 15 years. 

What is significant is that despite being the prime target of alleged persecution by the Sheikh Hasina government, the BNP has opposed calls for a ban on the AL. 

BNP secretary general Mirza Fakrul Islam Alamgir has said that banning any political party is wrong. “It is up to the people of the country to decide the fate of political parties. Who is anyone to ban a party?” he asked. 

Alamgir, who has always been an outspoken critic of the Sheikh Hasina government and the Awami League, said banning political parties is anti-democratic. 

The BNP secretary general has also opposed attacks on offices of political parties. He condemned last week’s torching of the headquarters of the Jatiya Party, an ally of the Awami League, in Dhaka. Jatiya Party offices were also attacked in other parts of the country over the weekend. 

Those attacks were indirectly endorsed by some leaders of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, the body which led the public uprising against Sheikh Hasina. Leaders of the movement are now part of the interim government. 

Political analysts in Bangladesh say that BNP’s opposition to the attacks on Jatiya Party offices and demands for ban on the Awami League mark the emergence of a divide between the BNP and the interim government headed by Mohammad Yunus. 

The BNP has also been demanding that parliamentary elections be held as soon as possible and that the Yunus administration set a timeline for holding the elections. 

Yunus has shied away from giving a timeframe for holding parliamentary elections and has only said that elections will be held once the reforms of the country’s Constitution, judiciary, police and public administration, election system and some other sectors are complete. 

BNP leaders told Swarajya that the party believes that only a duly elected parliament has the mandate to carry out reforms. 

“The interim government has constituted ten reform commissions. We want these commissions to submit their recommendations within the next few months. Parliamentary elections should be held after that and the Parliament should then debate those recommendations and implement them,” senior BNP leader Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told Swarajya. 

But many in the interim government want the reforms, especially to the country’s Constitution, its election system, judiciary and public and police administration to be implemented before elections are held and a new Parliament formed.

“The whole purpose of the revolution will be defeated if elections are held under the present flawed system and another party comes to power and establishes a similar reign of tyranny like the Awami League. People of Bangladesh revolted and overthrew the tyrannical and fascist Sheikh Hasina regime so that much-needed reforms to make Bangladesh a true democracy are carried out,” said Hasnat Abdullah, a coordinator of the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement. 

“Bangladesh is heading towards a major dispute between the BNP and other political parties on the one hand and the interim government, especially the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement, on the other. The political parties are becoming restless and want elections to be held as early as possible. They won’t wait beyond the middle of 2025 for elections. But the reforms commission will take time to submit their reports and studying their recommendations and building a consensus on implementing those recommendations will take a lot of time,” political analyst and commentator Sadaqat Ali told Swarajya.

The BNP is also wary of moves being made by some in the interim government to exclude the party from the country’s political arena under what is known as the ‘minus two formula’. 

BNP secretary general Alamgir alluded to these moves Sunday (November 3) and warned that any move to exclude the BNP, which is the country’s largest political party now, from politics will have “very grave consequences”. 

There has been some talk among a section of the advisors (ministers) in the Yunus administration and others outside it about excluding both the BNP and the Awami League from contesting elections in the near future. 

Their argument is that the BNP, which had been in power for two terms (1991 to 1996 and 2001 to 2006) was also very repressive and corrupt. According to them, the BNP is as responsible as the Awami League for the many ills and systemic faults afflicting the country. Hence, both should be kept away from active politics at least for the next few years till they (the two parties) reform themselves. 

There was a similar move--to exile the BNP and AL from active politics--when the Bangladesh army-backed caretaker government led by Fakruddin Ahmed clung onto power for two years (January 2007 to January 2009) till it was forced to hold elections after sustained countrywide protests. 

At that time, there was a system of a neutral caretaker regime assuming office after the tenure of an elected government ended. The caretaker government, being neutral, used to hold free and fair elections. 

After the tenure of the second BNP government ended in October 2006, a caretaker government headed by Iajuddin Ahmed (the then president of the country) took over and remained in office for a little over ten weeks. An intense political conflict led to army intervention and installation of an administration headed by Fakruddin Ahmed, a former governor of Bangladesh Bank. 

The Ahmed administration initiated a widespread anti-corruption drive and prosecuted top BNP and AL leaders, including former Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia. But nationwide protests led by the political parties and international pressure forced Ahmed to declare elections that were held in late December 2008. 

The Awami League won those elections and formed the government headed by Sheikh Hasina in January 2009. One of her first acts was to scrap the system of holding elections under a caretaker government. 

Incidentally, the BNP had demanded the restoration of the system of holding elections under a neutral caretaker government before the last two parliamentary elections in December 2018 and December 2023. But Hasina’s refusal to do so led to the BNP boycotting the last two elections, leading to western countries dubbing the polls as ‘one-sided’ and ‘rigged’. 

Anyway, the move to exclude the BNP and AL from active politics was dubbed as the ‘minus two’ formula to reform the country’s political system and cleanse it of endemic corruption, nepotism and malfeasance. 

This ‘minus two formula’ is being talked about and advocated once again by some leaders of the interim administration and the newly-registered Gono Odhikar Parishad. The senior leadership of the Parishad, especially its president Nurul Haq Nur, provided leadership to the student-led uprising that overthrew the Sheikh Hasina government in early-August. 

BNP’s Alamgir warned Sunday that “no one should even think of following that path (of excluding the BNP) from politics because the people of the country will never accept it and will oppose it vehemently”. 

There is, thus, growing distrust between the BNP and some leaders of the Yunus administration. The BNP is suspicious of the motives of these leaders--student leaders and prominent persons who are associated with some NGOs, think-tanks and academics--who it feels harbour political ambitions and want to capture power through the backdoor by deligitimising the BNP. 

This distrust will, inevitably, result in more trouble for Bangladesh.