When Sheikh Hasina came to power first, two decades ago, she embodied a new kind of politics for military-dominated coup-prone Bangladesh. She was seen as a secular democrat who would reform the impoverished country’s economy.
However, the president who fled by helicopter to India at the weekend as crowds stormed her Dhaka presidential palace had not met these goals. In fact her fifth term was marred by violence and her rule as the world’s longest-serving female leader was sustained by corruption, repression and the killing of opponents. Three hundred protesters died in the week before her ignominious departure.
It was a far cry from the supposed legacy and values of her father, assassinated independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Hasina’s attempts to entrench that legacy by reserving state jobs for descendants of veterans who served in the country’s 1971 civil war in which it split from Pakistan was a tipping point in the growing anger at her rule.
Power has passed in the country of 170 million people back to the army which has been implicated in the repression, but whose commander, Waker-Uz-Zaman, has promised to consult political parties about establishing a civilian government. That will not be easy as the divisions between the president’s Awami League and main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party now run very deep.
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Student calls for a key role for independent, highly respected Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus offered an opportunity that came to pass late on Tuesday night. Yunus (84), one of the country’s most prominent figures, won the Nobel prize in 2006 for pioneering microlending to the poor. The appointment of an interim government is expected.
President Mohammed Shahabuddin has taken the welcome first step of dissolving parliament and ordering the release of jailed ex-prime minister Khaleda Zia and student protesters. Khaleda had been jailed on what were widely regarded as politically motivated corruption charges. Whether that will be enough to bring quiet to Dhaka’s streets is uncertain.