Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is said to have shared her apprehensions of US trade-related sanctions on Bangladesh in the near future, with two senior leaders of a coalition of 14 political parties which are together allies of the ruling Awami League, on November 26.
The two leaders, Workers Party of Bangladesh Chairman Rashed Khan Menon and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal’s (JSD) Hasanul Huq Inu, met Sheikh Hasina after the Awami League made public its list of 298 nominees (on November 26) for the 12th Jatiya Sangshad elections that are due on January 7.
Neither Menon, who in the past contested from Dhaka-8 constituency, nor Inu, who won the Kushtia-2 seat in 2014, figured on the list. The last date for filing nomination papers is November 30.
Sources close to both Menon and Inu said that Sheikh Hasina first expressed fears of the impending US trade-related sanctions against Bangladesh before assuring them of including their names in the near future. For the record, while Menon’s political persuasion is closely linked to China, Inu, though left-leaning, is said to be inclined towards the Indian establishment.
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According to Awami League sources, Hasina’s gambit, especially in the backdrop of persistent American insistence that the forthcoming general elections should be free, fair, violence-free and participatory, would be to have the seemingly autonomous Bangladesh Election Commission (BEC) conduct the polls by January 7.
This strategy involves keeping the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) out of the poll fray by throwing its top leadership and thousands of supporters in jail. At the same time, there have been attempts more recently to “entice” small breakaway factions of the BNP, other splinter groups and the Jatiya Party (Ershad) to contest the elections in a bid to give the polls the “respectability” of being participatory, if not free and fair.
While Menon and Inu’s fate may or may not be decided at a later date, what is interesting is that Sheikh Hasina has retained on the party’s list of candidates at least six pro-China ministers who have substantial business dealings linked to that country.
These “sitting MPs” who are seeking re-election are: Salman F Rahman (Industry and Investment Advisor to the Prime Minister), Mohammad Hasan Mahmud (Information and Broadcasting Minister), Tipu Munshi (Commerce Minister), Shahriar Alam (Minister of State for Foreign Relations), Mustafa Kamal Lotus (Finance Minister) and Nasrul Hamid Bipu (Minister of State for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources).
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While senior Awami League sources said that the US State Department as well as the American Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter D Haas till recently sought to keep up the pressure on Dhaka to ensure a free, fair, violence-free and participatory elections, Indian officials had in the past had “advised” the Seikh Hasina regime to not seek the re-election of the six ministers who enjoy strong Chinese support.
However, the retention of the six ministers on the Awami League’s official list of nominees indicates that India’s insistence on dropping them has not had the desired effect on the ruling regime.
