Foreign Policy Blogs

BNP and AL Supporters Clash During Protest Strikes

The AP reported over the weekend past that more than 200 supporters of the BNP were arrested during a day long protest strike that the BNP had called to speak out against political moves it has challenged as Awami League misrule.

As the AP piece observes, the return of hte hartaal (protest strike) is a strong signal that politics as usual has returned to Bangladesh with fiery vengeance.  This move signals a troubling development for the ruling party because the protests and the anti-AL public program coincides with the country’s devastating power crisis and a more precarious political environment where voters are splitting the blame for their troubles onto both parties.

Nevertheless, a more forceful move to ‘take back the streets’ could redouble back to the BNP, devastating their already crumbling support.  Serious strategists within the party fear that turning the streets of Dhaka into a local Bangkok could have grievous electoral consequences.

However since the AL effectively owns the apparatus of legitimate  state violence, any evidence of untoward reaction could singe AL support.  Indeed, the AP piece suggests that the Rapid Action Battalion security force attacked opposition leaders and their supporters.  Increased frequency of these reports–which seem to emanate overwhelmingly from private media outlets–threatens to erode Sheikh Hasina’s power base of goodwill within the electorate and the international diplomatic community.

The BNP is at pains to draw a strict line between itself and its ‘criminal supporters‘.  However, if it falls victim to its historically suggestive bent toward a totalitarian ethic, the AL will have done itself immeasurable harm: along with its international support, it will have lost the support of international investors who will begin to think direct investment in the country a dire political risk.  Neither the AL nor the BNP can afford that outcome.

 

Author

Faheem Haider

Faheem Haider is a political analyst, writer and artist. He holds advanced research degrees in political economy, political theory and the political economy of development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and New York University. He also studied political psychology at Columbia University. During long stints away from his beloved Washington Square Park, he studied peace and conflict resolution and French history and European politics at the American University in Washington DC and the University of Paris, respectively.

Faheem has research expertise in democratic theory and the political economy of democracy in South Asia. In whatever time he has to spare, Faheem paints, writes, and edits his own blog on the photographic image and its relationship to the political narrative of fascist, liberal and progressivist art.

That work and associated writing can be found at the following link: http://blackandwhiteandthings.wordpress.com