Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) Leader and former Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia has been sentenced to five years imprisonment on charges of corruption. It certainly boosts Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s power base. The BNP leader may be debarred from contesting the elections in December this year. Her party will then boycott the polls as it did in 2013. Hasina will then romp in almost uncontested. That may subvert Bangladesh democracy by making a personality cult around Sheikh Hasina whose image has been sagging of late. Bangladeshis had been dissatisfied with her nepotism, corruption and encouragement to faction fighting. Her personal animosity against Khaleda is known to all. She believes that the BNP is in cahoots with the Jamaat-i-Islami, several of whose members had colluded with Pakistan during the liberation war. It is not all together untrue. Hasina’s desire for revenge is understandable because of the assassination of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rehaman. But hatred should not be the driving force in politics.
In fact, if Hasina gives a blow to democracy, that will run counter to the fervour behind the liberation war. Khaleda’s husband, Major Ziaur Rehman read the declaration of independence on March 27, 1971. He was also a valiant fighter in the 1971 war. Hasina is at war with terrorists and radical Islamists which are points in her favour. But her opposition to Zia is personal animus. However, there is no denying that Khaleda cannot escape the taint of corruption.
