Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, secretary general of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, has served warning that if his party leader Khaleda Zia is convicted and goes to prison, there will be no election in the country. Note that the warning is essentially a threat. Alamgir has not said that the BNP will not participate in the election should Begum Zia go to jail. He has said worse --- that there will be no election with the former prime minister in prison. In effect, he has warned that no election will be allowed to take place. The statement is as unwise as it is unacceptable. One reason is that the BNP secretary general has clearly ignored the fact that the case under which the BNP chairperson is being tried relates to corruption which, if proved, will have its natural ramifications. The case is being heard in a court of law, which is one way of saying that the government will have nothing to do with its outcome. To suggest, therefore, that it is the government which is behind the judicial proceedings is dangerous and threatens to set a bad precedent for the future. The more important reason why Mirza Alamgir's statement causes worry among citizens is the clear threat that it poses to democracy in Bangladesh. A political party may have all the right in the world to stay away from an election, something which the BNP did in January 2014. It may feel displeased with the arrangements made for elections to be held and decide that it is not willing to be part of such measures. That is only natural and that is part of the democratic process, though participating in elections is always desirable for of a political party, any political party. But what is not natural is for a party or its leading lights to warn the country that no election will be held, or will be allowed to be held, if its leaders are tried and convicted in a court of law. Such an attitude is a gross instance of disrespect for the rule of law and undermines the very purpose of the democratic experiment itself. From such a perspective, Mirza Alamgir's statement is a provocation, an invitation to chaos of the kind which his party and its extremist Islamist associates tried to initiate in the country in the recent past. The BNP secretary general has made note of the fact that, in his words, patriotic people will not be part of any electoral exercise if Khaleda Zia is sent to jail on the basis of 'false' cases. That again arouses public curiosity. Mirza Alamgir raises two points here. First, his definition of patriotism seems to be associated with the fate of his party leader. In other words, if she is exonerated, it will be a sign of patriotism on the part of the nation. If she is not, treachery will be in play. For the BNP secretary general, who has been in politics long enough to understand the nuances of it, such an expression of sentiments is demonstrative of a poor understanding of democratic pluralism. Again, Mirza Alamgir has referred to the 'false' cases being pursued against his leader. One wonders if he has been following the case under which Begum Zia is being tried. His loud assertion about false cases brings the judiciary into controversy and can without question be regarded as an attempt to intimidate the court and/or influence its verdict. That is no sign of a democratic mentality.
The BNP leadership would do well to take a leaf out of Sasikala's book. A confidante of the late J. Jayalalithaa, chief minister of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Sasikala laid claim to that position in recent weeks despite knowing that the Supreme Court was about to deliver judgement on a case relating to corruption on her part. Before she could be sworn in as chief minister, the court stepped in and convicted Sasikala of corruption, sentenced her to four years in jail and banned her from taking part in politics for ten years. No one from her party, the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (AIADMK), protested the judicial judgment. No one held out any threat of putting the state to the torch if Sasikala was sent to jail. None from her party even remotely threatened civil disorder in the event of her conviction. Not even Sasikala questioned the judgment or try to present herself as a martyr laid low by the law. The law, for her and her followers, was the law. It is a lesson the leaders and workers of the BNP --- and that includes its secretary general --- should take into account. It is simply not right for a party to contradict itself. On the one hand, it demands a full flowering of democracy in the country. On the other, it informs the nation, in anger and misplaced hubris, that democracy must happen on its own terms, that the rule of law is what it interprets it to be, that the courts should not dare penalize corruption. Our point is obvious: let the judiciary decide on the case involving the BNP chairperson. It is not appropriate, ethically or politically, for individuals to make statements that either embarrass the courts or put the government or the opposition in a straitjacket. One final point: BNP leader Gayeshwar Roy has made it known that his party will not take part in any election with Sheikh Hasina as the head. In other words, it would like the next election to be supervised by a caretaker or election-time --- it depends on how one interprets the term --- government. Back in late 2013, Sheikh Hasina did offer to share power, through handing the BNP a number of significant ministries, with Khaleda Zia. That projected administration would have supervised the election. The offer was spurned by the BNP. And what followed was an election in line with the Constitution in January 2014. The BNP stayed out of it. Perhaps it will have good reason not to miss the bus this time, assuming it moves away from the old clichés it has been bringing back to the public domain? Perhaps . . .?
