The Challenges Ahead For Hasina

Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina is set to create history as she begins her fifth term in office. She will be the longest-serving PM of Bangladesh. The result of Bangladesh’s 12th general election was predictable following the boycott by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the main opposition party.

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The elections were free and fair with sporadic violence, though the 42 per cent voter turnout showed apathy among the people.

The BNP greeted the result by calling for a nationwide general strike. The BNP had boycotted the election in 2014 and failed miserably in 2018, blaming the Hasina government of massive rigging. This time around, it tried its best to put pressure on the government by calling for hartals and unleashing violence. These tactics failed to deter the Hasina government. One reason for the BNP’s boycott is a leadership contest that would dilute the control of its exiled vice-chairman Tarique Rahman, apart from the fact that the BNP on its own cannot get a majority anymore. Its ally, the Jamaat-e-Islami, a collaborator of the Pakistani army in the genocide of 1971, remains banned.