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STRATEGICALLY SPEAKING

BNP in the political doldrums

If the BNP has failed to garner open public support, and if there is no palpable public move in this regard at this point in time, it is because the people would not want to have to do anything with the type of 'movement' that they experienced in the last three months of 2013.

Brig Gen Shahedul Anam Khan ndc, psc (Retd)
THE country's second largest political party is running out of steam. Little wonder that outlandish claims are being made about late president Zia. To say anything more about it except that such remarks are but a way of telling the party supporters that "we are still here" is to dignify rubbish.
However, we are sometimes alarmed by BNP's threat to launch movement against the government, the latest being
made by the acting secretary general of the party after his release from his latest incarceration. And it is not so much the prospect of dislodging the government but more the method it might resort to in its effort to do so that causes us the worry.
There is no doubt that the party has been outmaneu-vered by the Awami League, and only time will tell whether the BNP decision to boycott the parliamentary election was correct. It was lulled into a feeling of diffidence by statements emanating from the AL camp that the January 5 elections would only be an expedient to tide over a constitutional obligation. It reveals a complete lack of political acuity
of the BNP leaders, who among other things forgot the cardinal teaching of politics - never to take the opponent's words for granted. No wonder there are more bar-at-laws in the BNP than there are politicians. And it needs thoroughbred, not part time, politicians to pose a credible riposte to the AL.
It is just as well that the BNP is engaged in putting its house in order. Certainly everything is not well inside the party. And if there are no takers for the top party post of Dhaka city, then there must be something seriously wrong in the BNP. But has the party really done some introspection?
If it is reorganisation that the party is thinking about then it should start from the top, because there is little wrong at the grassroots level as the recent UZ elections have shown. Firstly, no party can afford to have an absentee landlord. And one wonders when Mirza Fakhrul Islam will stop 'acting.' Understandably, the 'crown prince' can- not be anointed now but no organisation can survive long on dual command, particularly when one of that is physically separated from the theater of politics by thousand of miles which prevents it from getting the real feel of the pulse of the people. And one cannot become a politician so far away from home, and much less, try to dictate politics. How prescient John Kennedy was when he said that all mothers want their sons to grow up to be president (or prime minister) but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
BNP should also realise that political movements are sustained with the help of the people and to hope that outside pressure would compel a government to succumb to opposition demands is not only a political blunder it is also a callow political expedient that only a fool will base his political strategy on, particularly against a government that has no qualms of conscience nor suffers remorse due to the lack of moral validity of its political position.
BNP should also deliberate deeply on why it could not really mobilise the public on an issue on which the greater majority of them concurred with the party position - the caretaker issue. The recently concluded UZ elections, particularly the last three phases, have reinforced the fact that no election in the country can be held with the incumbent in power. There is need for a neutral dispensation along with a strong
Election Commission to run the parliamentary elections.
If the BNP has failed to garner open public support, and if there is no palpable public move in this regard at this point in time, it is because the people would not want to have to do anything with the type of'movement' that they experienced in the last three months of 2013. The so-called BNP movement was hijacked by Jamaat, and only a party that feels no obligation to the greater majority of the people can perpetrate the type of violence we saw being done during that time. It is regrettable, but the fact is that the public has chosen to accept a travesty of an electoral process and its outcome only because the other option is to subject themselves to the senseless violence that the alternative, BNP movement, holds out.
No political programme that hurts the people can succeed. BNP should keep that in mind.
The writer is Editor, OP-ed and Defence & Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.