As February 12 approaches in Bangladesh, there are all the questions that are piling up from day to day.
The Yunus regime, installed in power in an unconstitutional manner in August 2024, would like the world to believe that an election is being held on that day.
And with that comes the issue of a referendum that the regime would like to have approved by citizens on the same day.
The questions are endless.
First and foremost is the one relating to whether the election will at all be held on February 12.
The sceptics are not convinced that the election will take place, which is when they begin to advance the thought that between now and February 12, something of a dramatic nature could yet occur that will have the election either deferred or done away with altogether.
Sceptics apart, there are questions that have been emerging among large sections of citizens.
On February 12, what percentage of the electorate will make their way to the polling stations?
Or will there be deserted streets all across Bangladesh’s cities and towns, holding up an image before the world of an election rejected by the broad masses of citizens.
In the rural regions of the country, any election fever is conspicuous by its absence.
The regime and the political parties desperate for a share of power, if not an entirety of power, in this squalid political atmosphere, will go out on a limb to push through an election and convince citizens as well as the rest of the world that Bangladesh is headed back to democracy.
But that is a message which will be a gross untruth, for, if anything, what transpired in August 2024 was an undermining of democracy and constitutional government in the country.
It stands to reason, then, that if February 12 comes to pass and a pointless election takes place, what sort of result can citizens expect?
Will the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) be able to squeak through to victory? Or will the Jamaat-e-Islami, for the very first time since its formation by Moulana Maududi in 1941, taste power through registering a victory at the sham of an election on February 12?
The Jamaat has friends in Yunus and the king’s party.
To a certain extent, certain foreign diplomats based in Dhaka have, of late, been peddling the notion that the vote should go in favour of the Jamaat.
And so here comes the next question: What happens if neither the BNP nor the Jamaat, the latter despite its allies, gain a majority at the election?
One answer is that it will make Yunus happy, for he has given every indication in recent weeks that he would like to stay on, perhaps as Bangladesh’s next President.
A hint of that possibility is to be spotted in the so-called July Charter, which the Yunus regime has placed before the nation, as part of its ‘referendum’.
One of the ideas being bandied about in the ‘referendum’ is for a balance of power to be enshrined in the constitution between the President and the Prime Minister.
And hence the next question. Will the BNP or the Jamaat, depending on which party lays a claim to power after February 12, agree to such a balance of power between the head of state and the head of government?
Will Tareque Rahman or Shafiqur Rahman agree to serve as Prime Minister with a President Yunus wielding authority that could thwart their ideas of governance as played out in Parliament?
In other words, will Bangladesh after February 12 become a hostage to governmental paralysis if and when the President and the Prime Minister do not agree on national issues?
Can Parliament, assuming such a crisis erupts, impeach the President?
And can the President exercise the power to dismiss the Prime Minister, indeed the cabinet, should he feel the necessity to do so?
The country is awash with such questions and a host of others.
Obviously, if February 12 goes ahead, Bangladesh’s people will have yet one more illegitimate regime foisted on them.
The illegitimacy stems from the reality of the nation’s largest political party, the Awami League, not being permitted to contest the election. In other words, the political landscape after February 12 will be a vast political aridity because of the absence of Sheikh Hasina and her party in the electoral exercise.
Politics will ring hollow, indeed, it has been without meaning in the last eighteen months.
The questions keep piling up.
The February 12 election, if it goes through, will lack popular acceptance because it will not have been free or fair or inclusive.
In such a scenario, will those who enter Parliament as lawmakers and those who form a government, whatever the nature of that government might be, be forced by circumstances and public discontent to call a fresh election that will ensure a level playing field for all parties and especially the Awami League?
Or, given the reluctance of those who form a new government after February 12 to surrender the right to hold on to power, will there be trouble on the streets that challenge the moral and political right of those who believe February 12 has given them a mandate to govern?
There is that other question. Will the BNP or the Jamaat, in government, be in a position to roll back all the illegal actions, indeed the systematic violations of the law indulged in by the Yunus regime?
Hundreds of political figures, journalists, civil servants, artistes have languished in prison since Yunus imposed his mob rule on the country.
Will the new men who take charge after February 12 call forth the moral courage to order a withdrawal of the false cases against those detained and authorise their release from incarceration?
All these questions are being raised by Bangladesh’s people.
One final question: once a proper election, one that is fully participatory, that includes every political party, is held, of course under a properly constituted caretaker government, will the political dispensation that will take charge initiate measures to prosecute those who have not only clung to power through a violation of the constitution but have unleashed mobs against all symbols of Bangladesh’s history and heritage and bring them to swift, meaningful justice?
But that is a question only the Awami League will be equipped to answer.
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In these eighteen months since their government was hounded out of power through conspiracy at home and abroad, Awami Leaguers have remained unable to formulate a policy or strategy that will revive their relevance in national politics. Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League cannot afford to be wandering in the woods for much longer.
