Yesterday Bangladesh saw the worst election violence in history, with 18 people killed by security forces and scores of others wounded. The Awami League’s hollow victory gives it little to no mandate to rule the country, given the fact that the people have spoken – the protests were in violent reaction to the illegitimacy of the elections held this weekend.
Sheikh Hasina has paid dearly for the elections she forced on the country. Eighteen individuals – possibly more – have lost their lives because Hasina refused to listen to her constituents, and step down so that a neutral administration could hold the election. If she was sure she could win fair and square, she wouldn’t have minded allowing a caretaker government to step in; she believed that fraud and aggression were the only means of survival for her party.
Even given the boycott by the opposition party, so that Awami League won an absurd number of seats due to the fact that many of them were uncontested, and the fact that there was extremely low voter turnout, Hasina had to commit fraud and push underage voters into the polling booths.
Hasina’s insecurity is so great that she has jailed the opposition leader in her own home, stationing dozens of riot police and intelligence agents outside the gates and banning journalists from entering to interview her. Hasina is obviously scared of hearing what the international media has to say – a journalist for the New York Times, possibly the most influential Western media outlet in the world, was turned away from Zia’s home despite having set up an interview with her. Hasina makes the ludicrous claim that she is protecting Khaleda Zia from harm, but it seems that the individual that poses the greatest danger to the opposition leader is the prime minister.
