ANALYSIS

A democracy where the heads of the two main opposition parties are women, should be an excellent springboard for any modern state and an excellent showcase for the world. Trouble is, this is Bangladesh one of the poorest countries on earth, whose 170m people are going have to endure another round of political infighting between the daughter of a former president and the widow of another.

Even by South Asian standards – remember Bangladesh is neighbours with India and was once east Pakistan – the power games between Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami party and the current prime minister, and Khaleda Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, have been stupid and dangerous. Here is a country where democracy has not been able to deliver anything concrete to the man on the street, whilst the elected leaders of the two main parties have spent most of their time in office trying to score points off each other.

Perhaps the best example of this, is the war crimes tribunal which was set up to investigate atrocities in the 1971 civil war and which is looking like an attempt to discredit the BNP and her Islamist allies.

Awful things were committed during that conflict and after in revenge, trouble is no one seems to be interested in what happened after when Indian trained militias savagely punished anyone that had supported Pakistan.

On top of this, the Awami League has targetted a Nobel laureate who pioneered Microfinance and created the Grameen Bank, Mohammad Yunus. His crime appears to be that he dared to set up a “third force” in Bangladesh politics.

Today, Bangladesh which fought to be free of one master is the only country on the subcontinent to accept India as the region’s superpower, something that the smaller – in terms of population – war ravaged Sri Lanka has not done to this day.

And domestically, the country which was once the breadbasket of Pakistan, sees street protests, disappearances and murders of opposition leaders.

All the while,  ordinary Bengalis who struggle with food and fuel price rises, chronic power cuts and still no new roads  are contributing through the textile industry to an economy with 6 per cent growth with the promise of a healthy middle class in the near future.

So, with a general election eighteen months away, one has to wonder what exactly would be gained from such an enterprise at this moment, when the country’s politicians seem so distracted from the real issues.