Can Bangladesh’s Awami League survive election ban, ex-PM Hasina’s exile?

Dhaka, Bangladesh – As boatman Ripon Mridha washed his ft early within the morning after an evening of fishing in Bangladesh’s mighty Padma River, his eyes scanned the partitions and shutters of the retailers within the neighbourhood market.

Till not too long ago, the neighbourhood in central Bangladesh’s Rajbari district was plastered with massive posters and banners, with the faces of native politicians belonging to former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League social gathering looming massive.

Right this moment, these indicators are gone, leaving little traces of a celebration that dominated over Bangladesh for 15 years earlier than a student-led rebellion in 2024 toppled Hasina’s iron-fisted authorities and compelled her into exile in India, her shut ally.

After the rebellion, Hasina’s Awami League was banned from all political actions, whereas a particular tribunal, mockingly based by Hasina herself in 2010 to strive political opponents, sentenced her to demise in absentia for her function within the killing of greater than 1,400 individuals in the course of the protests.

On February 12, the nation of 170 million individuals is scheduled to vote in its first parliamentary election since Hasina’s ouster.

Mridha, a lifelong Awami League voter, mentioned he feels little enthusiasm over the election after the social gathering he supported had been banned. He may nonetheless vote, however faces a dilemma over whom to help for the reason that Awami League’s boat image is not going to seem on the poll.

The boatman, about 50 years of age, mentioned that his household fears that in the event that they don’t vote, they could be recognized as Awami League supporters in a rustic the place Hasina and her social gathering right this moment draw widespread anger for the a long time of killings, pressured disappearances, torture and political crackdowns that they oversaw.

Below Hasina’s rule, the Jamaat-e-Islami social gathering and Bangladesh Nationalist Celebration (BNP) – the Awami League’s two largest opponents – had been systematically persecuted. The Jamaat was banned, a few of its leaders had been executed, and lots of others had been imprisoned. 1000’s of BNP leaders had been arrested, together with former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who died in December. Her son and present BNP chief Tarique Rahman lived in exile in London for 17 years earlier than returning to Bangladesh in December.

Widespread political violence continues to hassle Bangladesh’s preparations for the elections, with leaders from the BNP, Jamaat and different events killed in current weeks. However now, like their counterparts from different events, widespread supporters of the Awami League not take pleasure in immunity both from the anger the actions of their leaders have triggered.

“If we don’t vote, we danger being singled out,” Mridha informed Al Jazeera. “So our household will go to the polling centre.”

Conversations with longtime Awami League voters in areas the place the social gathering as soon as dominated reveal a divided temper.

Whereas many say they may nonetheless go to polling centres, others say they might not vote in any respect.

Like Solaiman Mia, a rickshaw puller in Gopalganj, the Hasina household’s bastion and the hometown of her father and Bangladesh’s founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose grave lies within the district south of Dhaka as an everlasting image of the Awami League’s highly effective grip on the area. Hasina gained large victories in Gopalganj in each election since 1991.

Mia is unequivocal that he and his household wouldn’t vote this yr. “An election with out the boat on the poll shouldn’t be an election,” he informed Al Jazeera, a sentiment shared by many residents of Gopalganj.

‘Awami League will return’

In central Dhaka’s Gulistan space lies the Awami League’s head workplace – now deserted after it was vandalised and set on fireplace in the course of the rebellion. Since then, the constructing has been used as a shelter by homeless individuals and sections of it as a public rest room.

Outdoors the workplace, avenue vendor Abdul Hamid says he has not seen Awami League activists wherever close to the world for months.

“You gained’t discover any Awami League supporters right here,” he mentioned. “Even when somebody is a supporter, they might by no means admit it. The Awami League has confronted crises earlier than, nevertheless it has by no means nearly disappeared like this.”

Close by, one other avenue vendor, Sagor, is promoting woollen scarves draped within the symbols of the BNP and its former ally and now rival, the Jamaat-e-Islami social gathering.

“The scarves belonging to the events are promoting properly,” he mentioned as pedestrians surrounded him.

Nonetheless, some Awami League supporters are optimistic in regards to the social gathering’s resurgence.

Arman, a former chief of Bangladesh Chhatra League, the scholar wing of the Awami League, mentioned the social gathering could also be sustaining a strategic silence, however is way too entrenched to vanish from Bangladesh’s politics.

“The Awami League will return,” he informed Al Jazeera. “And when it does, it’ll return with Sheikh Hasina.”

However Rezaul Karim Rony, a Dhaka-based political analyst and editor of Joban journal, shouldn’t be so positive. He thinks surviving the February election will likely be tough for the Awami League.

“If an election takes place with out the Awami League, its voters will regularly undergo a type of reconciliation on the native degree,” Rony informed Al Jazeera. “They are going to be absorbed domestically – aligning themselves with whichever influential forces or events dominate their areas – and start rebuilding their on a regular basis lives that approach.”

In consequence, Rony mentioned, it is going to be tough for the Awami League to get better its help base as soon as the election is over. He mentioned whereas a piece of the social gathering’s supporters nonetheless sees no future for the social gathering with out Hasina, a sizeable group inside it’s pissed off by her authoritarian rule when she was in energy.

“With supporters divided, with or with out Hasina, returning to its earlier political place is extraordinarily tough – nearly unattainable – for the Awami League,” Rony mentioned.

‘Looks like a political wipeout’

Different analysts argue {that a} current surge in help for Jamaat-e-Islami may, paradoxically, supply a reference level for a potential future revival of the Awami League. The Jamaat supported Pakistan throughout Bangladesh’s battle of independence in 1971, a task that its critics – together with Hasina – have repeatedly used to problem its credibility.

The social gathering was banned twice, and its prime leaders had been hanged and jailed throughout Hasina’s rule. Nonetheless, it survived, and is now – in keeping with polls – on the cusp of its finest ever efficiency within the February elections.

“Jamaat’s present degree of activism, affect and assertiveness – what may even be described as a present of dominance – can paradoxically be seen as a type of blessing for the Awami League,” Anu Muhammad, a retired economics professor at Jahangirnagar College, informed Al Jazeera.

Muhammad mentioned the enchantment of the Awami League extends far past its formal political construction, making its whole political erasure unlikely. “The Awami League isn’t just its management,” he mentioned. “It’s related to cultural, social and different forces.”

A pre-election survey by the Worldwide Republican Institute, a United States assume tank targeted on democratic governance, steered the Awami League nonetheless retains a help base of about 11 %.

But, the social gathering doesn’t characteristic within the ongoing election marketing campaign, and its leaders have as an alternative been seen organising occasions from India, together with a controversial deal with by Hasina – her first since ouster – at a “Save democracy in Bangladesh” occasion at New Delhi’s Overseas Correspondents Membership.

“To overthrow the foreign-serving puppet regime of this nationwide enemy at any price, the courageous little children of Bangladesh should defend and restore the Structure written within the blood of martyrs, reclaim our independence, safeguard our sovereignty, and revive our democracy,” Hasina mentioned in a prerecorded audio message.

A livid Dhaka mentioned it was “stunned and shocked” that Indian authorities allowed such an occasion to happen.

Again residence, nonetheless, Hasina’s social gathering is struggling to say political relevance, elevating questions on its survival.

Michael Kugelman, senior fellow for South Asia on the Atlantic Council, argued that, by strict democratic requirements, an election in Bangladesh with out the Awami League can’t be thought-about totally credible, calling the vote “an election with an asterisk”.

On the similar time, he argued, the Awami League had – within the eyes of many Bangladeshis – forfeited its rights to be handled as a professional social gathering due to the repression that Hasina had overseen and its earlier efforts to tilt the electoral enjoying subject. The 2014, 2018 and 2024 elections – which Hasina gained with a landslide – had been all extensively seen as manipulated, with opposition boycotts and crackdowns on rivals.

Nonetheless, Kugelman mentioned the character of dynastic political events in South Asia is such that they hardly ever die.

“Though the Awami League is in a foul place, it’s primarily out of the political image indefinitely in Bangladesh; one definitely shouldn’t rule out a possible future comeback. Political circumstances can change in a short time,” he informed Al Jazeera.

Kugelman in contrast the social gathering’s present disaster with what its bitter rival, the BNP, suffered throughout Hasina’s regime when the primary opposition social gathering struggled to mount a significant political or electoral problem – solely to re-emerge now because the most definitely contender for energy.

He mentioned the Awami League is more likely to undertake a “ready technique”. So long as Hasina stays politically energetic, she is more likely to “wish to keep within the recreation” and may additionally announce her US-based son Sajeeb Wazed as her dynastic successor.

“It may take time,” Kugelman mentioned. “Given how politics play out on this area, they are often fairly unstable. If a gap emerges down the highway and the Awami League is in a greater place to function as a viable political drive, it may properly come again. However for now, it’s primarily useless within the water.”

That’s not a cheerful portent for Mridha, the boatman in Rajbari, for whom the uncertainty over his social gathering’s future is deeply unsettling.

“My father used to speak about how the Awami League struggled after Bangabandhu [as Hasina’s father is fondly called] was assassinated,” he mentioned, referring to Rahman’s assassination throughout a coup by the military in 1975, which pushed the Awami League into its first main disaster.

“However this yr appears like a political wipeout.”