Bangladesh’s election will be a “sham” designed to cement Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s rule, says exiled opposition leader Tarique Rahman, defending his party’s boycott of Sunday’s vote.
Rahman is heir to one of the country’s two main political dynasties – the other led by Hasina – and has helmed its largest opposition party since the 2018 jailing of his mother, two-time Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.
Six years ago, he was convicted in absentia of masterminding a deadly grenade attack on a campaign rally for Hasina and sentenced to life imprisonment. Rahman insists the charge is fabricated.
His Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) staged a months-long protest campaign last year demanding the prime minister’s resignation that saw at least 11 people killed and thousands of its supporters arrested.
In his interview with the AFP news agency published on Thursday, Rahman, 56, said it would be inappropriate to have his party participate in a vote with a “predetermined” outcome.
“Bangladesh is approaching another sham election,” he said by email from London, where he has lived since 2008.
“Participating in an election under Hasina, against the aspirations of the Bangladeshi people, would undermine the sacrifices of those who fought, shed blood and gave their lives for democracy.” Rahman said the odds against the BNP and dozens of other parties which joined the boycott had been overwhelmingly stacked against them by the governing Awami League.
He accused it of fielding “dummy” opposition candidates aligned with the governing party to give the election a patina of legitimacy. This would create “an impression of competition even though all results are predetermined”, he said.
He also claimed the Awami League was attempting to drive up turnout by threatening to withhold government benefits from those who did not vote for its candidates.
The United States, which sanctioned Bangladeshi security forces in 2021 over allegations of rights abuses, and other countries have also voiced their concerns about the conduct of this week’s vote.
Hasina, in power since 2009, has repeatedly assured that the election would be credible after observers said the previous polls won by her party – in 2014 and 2018 – were marred by irregularities.
“Go to the polling stations and cast votes in the morning to show the world that we know how to hold the election in a free and fair manner,” she told a campaign rally on Saturday.
