After a Bangladeshi court decided to issue a warrant for the arrest of former prime minister and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Khaleda Zia on Wednesday, the stand-off between Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) government and the opposition is expected to worsen. That Zia’s arrest was ordered after she failed to appear in court for the fourth time in two cases of graft is unlikely to mitigate the aggression of an opposition that has held the country to ransom through a nationwide blockade ordered by Zia last month to compel Hasina to call fresh elections. At least 100 people have been killed since, but neither opposition nor government has shown an inclination to soften up for a serious and sustained dialogue.
Having been out of power since 2006, and after its self-defeating boycott of the general election in January 2014, the BNP’s desperation to return to power is visible. Members of its alliance — especially the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefazat-e-Islam — have been responsible for large-scale violence ever since verdicts began to be pronounced against Jamaat leaders in the 1971 war crimes trials. While not excusing the government for its high-handedness, particularly its detention of senior BNP leaders, the onus is on the opposition to own up to the breakdown in law and order caused by its agitation. Coupled with the war crimes verdicts, this is part of the larger battle for the identity of Bangladesh and Hasina’s government is undeniably on the moral high ground here.
