The former dictator and President of Bangladesh, Hussain Muhammad Ershad, pledged his loyalty to the ruling Awami League, the very party that once stood in opposition to his rule. His Bangladesh Jatiya Party (BJP), though a member of the left leaning AL Grand Coalition has been something of a flighty beast.
Once the clearing house of a hard line vote, during the election in 2008 the BJP lent credence to the whispers on the ground that with the AL coalition in power, the Army could return to the barracks. It is hard to see how Jatiya Party (Ershad) can become more important in the Grand Alliance, unless things come apart in Bangladesh’s civilian-military relationship.
Similarly, it is hard to envision that the JP (Ershad) might be seated comfortably at the table with the BNP, given that for more than two years it opposed the BNP as a member of the Grand AlIance. Ershad is no mercurial Alcibiades: with or without his shining age and his pending political infirmities, his days as a major power in Bangladeshi politics are numbered.
