In Bangladesh, ask a ruling Awami League politician what words should follow “development” and the response will be “over democracy”. Ridin...
In Bangladesh, ask a ruling Awami League politician what words should follow “development” and the response will be “over democracy”. Riding on two successive controversial elections, Awami League politicians are given to reminding Bangladeshis that they have alternative but to keep backing the ruling party if they want to steer the country into a faster lane of development.
At some of the public gatherings, after listing examples of development that has taken place under three consecutive Awami League tenures spanning over a decade, some politicians cite Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia or Li Kuan Yu of Singapore to emphasise that Bangladesh’s best option is to continue with the government run by their party rather than voting another one into power.
There is nothing wrong with that. It is in a democratic right for a political party to inform the people about their successes and to seek votes to keep it into the power. But the problem is that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government, facilitated by a largely unquestioning media, has become a master at selling its achievements and botching it up when uncomfortable questions crop up.
A Deutsche Welle interview on February 10 with Gowher Rizvi, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s foreign affairs advisor, is a classic example of this....
