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Harsh political dispensation

Shamsuddin Ahmed
BANGLADESH is being presently governed with a very heavy hand by the jumbo size poll-time government headed by Sheikh Hasina, and she often claims that her's is a democratic government while in the same breath she derides the past military rulers.
There is no denying that the nation witnessed an extraconstitutional and autocratic dispensation under two military dictators. But by any stretch of imagination can we say that the way the democratically elected AL-led alliance government had governed this country, and the present poll-time government has been ruling us, is democratic? It has been very repressive in nature, to say the least. One renowned and very revered literary person of the country recently quipped in utter frustration that while in the past we had seen military autocracy, now we are seeing democratic autocracy!
Frankly speaking, democracy has never been our politicians' cup of tea ever since we achieved independence in 1971. It has been practically a one man rule in the garb of an elected government all the way. By and large our politicians seem to have a penchant for repressive rule and they exhibit sheer arrogance once they step into the corridors of state power.
In a democracy, the police as an institution of the state work relentlessly to ensure safety and security of the people. Ordinary people look to the police as their friends. But thanks to our political rulers, police has never been allowed to be friend of the people. They have been politicised so much by the party in power that they have, sadly, become an instrument of repression of the opposition.
Today, front ranking senior leaders of BNP are being treated as if they are riff-raffs who could be arrested by the police at will at any time and from anywhere on trumped-up charges, kept on remand, and released on bail only to be rearrested on another flimsy charge.
As of now, many of the senior BNP leaders are languishing in jail. It appears that any BNP leader who tries to act as the spokesmen of the BNP chairperson is being arrested by the police. The spectacle of the police watching a lady in black coat being roughed up mercilessly by an unruly mob is disturbing. The picture of our police
shoving and forcing the pro-BNP lawyers to stay behind the gates of the Supreme Court compound and then spraying coloured hot water on them is disgraceful. This does not happen in a truly democratic state.
Besides, Khaleda Zia has virtually been kept under house arrest as a massive police force including female police has cordoned off her official residence with sand laden trucks in front of her house. And she has not been allowed to come out of her house, which is bizarre. No leader of the opposition had been treated like this even by the military rulers.
In a democracy the prime minister remains in constant engagement with, and shows maximum respect to, the leader of the opposition, but not quite so in this country of ours.
The present political stalemate, the systematic tearing asunder of the fabric of democracy and social order and colossal death and destruction we have been watching, centre around one issue - election for the 10 ’ Jatiyo Sangsad.
While Sheikh Hasina is hell bent to win the election by hook or by crook in order to hold on to power as long as she can, for which she had unilaterally scrapped the CTG system through the 15,h constitutional amendment using her brute majority in the Jatiyo Sangsad, Khaleda Zia is determined to put in place a neutral poll time government to oversee a free, fair and credible election because she is confident that BNP would win such an election hands down and come to power. Morally, Khaleda Zia may be right because the BNP-led opposition has been totally denied any political space and a level playing field by the government.
The January 5 election will not give any legitimacy to the AL government to be formed. Neither the people of this country nor the international community will accept this one party election devoid of voters. Why waste Taka five to six billion of tax payers' money of this impoverished country for such a futile electoral exercise? The least Sheikh Hasina can and should do is to step down gracefully and allow a poll-time government headed by someone who stands on a moral high ground and commands respect of the people cutting across the political divide. Is it too difficult to find such a person?
The writer is a retired Brigadier General.