Constitutional politics in the country is imperilled from the beginning by the absence of a viable party system. This weakness now looms larger than ever before as the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution has triggered an intriguing process of political reconstruction.

The Fifteenth Amendment has introduced in the country the fourth constitutional dispensation following the adoption of the Constitution in 1972, the Fourth Amendment of 1975 and the Fifth Amendment of 1979. During the earlier three constitutional dispensations, party system hardly played any effective role. And since 1979, power struggle among the political parties used to be overwhelmed by crude power game, orchestrated by domestic and international power brokers. As a result, the institution of election lost credibility and conspiracy theories proliferated. Political stability, as distinct from the longevity of a particular government, had been eluding the nation. What is in store now?

Phase One: The Proclamation of Independence of April 10, 1971 was the basis on which the country was run until the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh was adopted on November 4, 1972. The Constitution established multi-party parliamentary system –– but with two distinctive features. The parties which participated in the war of independence and liberation formed the core of the party system and all the open parties, old as well as the new ones, subscribed to the four Fundamental Principles of State Policy, viz., secularism, democracy, nationalism and socialism. Secondly, religion-based parties were banned in the secular-socialist polity.

The Awami League, the behemoth among the parties, captured 293 out of the 300 seats in the election to the First Parliament in 1973. The opposition parties those mattered got restless and lost faith in the possibility of winning or sharing power through elections in the foreseeable future. The Awami League, on the other hand, became triumphalist and found the multi-party system a hindrance in the governance of the country.

Phase Two: The Fourth Amendment of January 25, 1975 replaced multi-party parliamentary system with one-party presidential form of government. The Awami League metamorphosed into the national party in which joined some other parties and its leader Shiekh Mujibur Rahman, who was designated as the Father of the Nation, became the president.

The experimentation with the one-party system ended even before the formation of the national party, the Bangladesh Krishak-Sramik Awami League (Baksal), could be completed. The counter-revolution of August 15, 1975 struck in which Sheikh Mujib and most members of his family were killed.

Phase Three: General Ziaur Rahman began the process of civilianising his regime with the proclamation of the Political Parties Regulations (PPR) in July 1976. The PPR withdrew the ban on religion-based parties. All the old parties, including the Awami League, revived. And the military produced the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) as the political prop of the Zia regime.

The party system the PPR introduced was apparently intended to consolidate the Bangladeshi Islam-pasand polity Zia had improvised through martial law proclamations and later given constitutional sanctity through the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. That is, the parties would broadly accept the Islamisation of the constitution, Bangladeshi nationalism which is a euphemism for Bengali Muslim nationalism, neoliberal economic policies and the abolition of secularism and socialism. But this was not to happen. The Awami League and its allies in democratic and left politics continued to harp on the Mukti Juddher Chetana (the spirit of the liberation war).

One referendum, one presidential election and one parliamentary election took place during Zia’s time. The 1977 referendum on the presidency of Zia, which he assumed through a martial law proclamation, was a non-party affair. The presidential election of 1978 was staged primarily to formalise the position of Zia as an elected person. Zia was still on his uniform and the BNP, his party, was yet to be born. In the 1979 parliamentary election, the BNP bagged 41.2 per cent votes and established its claim as the leader of the Bangladeshi Islam-pasand politics. The Awami League, with 24.5 per cent votes, emerged as the main opposition.

The Zia regime neither originated from nor did it rely on the political system. Zia rose from the cantonment, his power base was cantonment and cantonment was his undoing. A military revolt on May 30, 1981killed Zia and ended his regime.

The powers that be installed Justice Abdus Sattar, a political weakling, as the acting president of the country as well as chairman of the BNP. The presidential election was not due until 1983. But, the politicians played into the hands of the power-players in the cantonment and opted for an early presidential election which was held in November 1981, only five months after Zia’s death. The BNP made an electoral overkill, the government-opposition relations deteriorated to a new nadir and factionalism in the BNP became rife. In this atmosphere of chaotic politics, the military top brass put pressure on Sattar to give the military a constitutional role in the government, and finally, General HM Ershad staged his coup on March 24, 1982.

Phase Four: General Ershad gave a twist to the party system. He embraced and embellished General Zia’s Islam-pasand politics but formed, with the help of the cantonment, a rival party to the BNP to perpetuate himself in power. The leadership of the Islam-pasand polity got divided between the BNP and Ershad’s Jatiya Party.

Meanwhile, Sheikh Hasina, who was in self-exile in India since 1975, was elected president of the Awami League in 1981. She returned home the same year and Awami League politics rejuvenated with Mujib’s daughter at the helm of the party. In another development, Khaleda Zia was elected chairperson of the BNP in 1984. Once Zia’s widow took to the political field, Ershad was reduced to a pretender to the leadership of the Islam-pasand polity.

The discord in the Islam-pasand camp made an unintended but profound impact on politics. This facilitated the development of a united “anti-autocracy movement” by the political parties across the ideological divide. The condemnation and denunciation of the Ershad regime as “autocratic”, was, in retrospect, a rebuke to the BNP and Islam-pasand polity in general as these were also made in the cantonment.

At the peak of the anti-autocracy movement, the cantonment abandoned Ershad and he abdicated presidency on December 6, 1990. This paved the way for the holding of elections to the Fifth Parliament and the peaceful dismantling of the 15-year-long regime of direct and civilianised military rule in the country.

Phase Five: Khaleda Zia brought the BNP back into power in the election to the Fifth Parliament held in 1991. Parliamentary democracy was restored in fulfilment of a pledge of the “anti-autocracy” movement. But the treasury and opposition benches failed to work amicably, and the parliament became non-functional. The opposition members, led by the Awami League, resigned en masse in 1994, demanding the introduction of the system of non-party caretaker government.

The election to the Sixth Parliament was held in February 1996 without the participation of the opposition parties. The election turned into a farce. The re-elected BNP government of Khaleda felt obliged to amend the constitution to bring in the non-party-caretaker system and resigned in March. The Sixth Parliament lasted only 12 days (19 March 1996 – 30 March 1996).

The election to the Seventh Parliament was held in June, 1996 and the Awami League returned to power with Hasina as the prime minister. In the election to the Eighth Parliament, held in 2001, the BNP recaptured power, again, under Khaleda’s leadership.

Boycott of parliament sessions by the opposition, led either by the Awami League or the BNP as the case might be, was a regular feature from 1991to 2006.

By this time, politics was reduced to a duel between the Awami League and the BNP. Partisan politics took a civil-war-like antagonistic character.

As the election to the Ninth Parliament neared, which was scheduled for January 2007, then BNP government of Khaleda stubbornly resisted Awami League-led opposition’s demand to create a level-playing field. Civil strife erupted. The military, encouraged by the America-led West, the United Nations and India, made a covert intervention and put together a puppet caretaker government which initially drew support from the so-called Sushil Samaj (civil society) and the people at large.

Thanks to the quixotic handling of politics and governance by the junta, the quasi-military government soon disenchanted its domestic and international supporters. It, however, did a splendid job in implementing necessary electoral reforms, including pruning the voters’ list of ghost voters.

Phase Six: When the military eventually returned to the barracks and election to the Ninth Parliament was held in December 2008, Hasina led the Awami League to power with three-fourths majority in parliament.

The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, passed in the parliament in June 2011in the absence of the BNP-led opposition, prescribes an ideological fusion between Islam and secularism while keeping the neoliberal economic policies undisturbed –– a hybrid Islamic-secular-capitalist polity, mixing elements of the pre-’75 secular-socialist polity and those of the post-’75 Islam-pasand polity.

Precipitate power game: The Fifteenth Amendment should have arguably turned ideological confrontation between the political parties into political competition within the constitutional framework –– some using the amendment to implement their Islamic agenda and some others for strengthening secularism. But the amendment has, instead, sharpened the antagonism between the two pillars of the extant party system, the Awami League and the BNP.

The BNP has become a collateral victim of the Fifteenth Amendment. Though the amendment has co-opted essential elements of the Islam-pasand polity it, along with the Supreme Court judgement on the Fifth Amendment, has demolished the legacies of General Zia. The BNP cannot compromise with Zia’s legacies on which depends the sustainability and viability of the party.

At another plane, the BNP cannot think of any alternative to the leadership of Khaleda Zia and Tarique Rahman, her son, to run the party at this juncture. Both of them face court cases and, if found guilty, the threat of disqualification for participating in elections for certain periods of time.

Politically as well as organisationally, the BNP finds itself in the midst of an existential crisis. In response, Khaleda Zia has vowed to bring down the government in a mass upsurge. This has precipitated a power game of a sort.

One may speculate whether the BNP will succeed in its insurrectionist tactics or the tactics will boomerang on the BNP itself, but one thing may be safely stated –– that the present party system has become anachronistic.

In this deepening crisis, there is, however, a silver lining. The power brokers, at home and abroad, and the politicians in general would possibly bear in mind that the co-existence of martial law and constitution, which was improvised by the Fifth Amendment, is no longer possible in the aftermath of the Supreme Court judgement on the Fifth Amendment even if they do not respect the Fifteenth Amendment. Besides, the Fifteenth Amendment has kept no scope for any indirect military intervention as one took place in 2007-08. Either constitutional continuity will be maintained –– the change of governments through elections and the amendment of the constitution through constitutionally prescribed process –– or the constitution will have to be abrogated. The wager is: whatever may happen in the streets or the corridors of power and how much redundant the party system might have become, nobody will risk plunging the country into total uncertainties by abrogating the constitution. Political stability will, though, remain elusive in the ideological hotchpotch of the Fifteenth Amendment when the mainstream parties will confuse the people with their diverse Islamic cards and the Islamist outfits will push their retrogressive ideas while the left parties wander in political wilderness.

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NM Harun, now retired, was a journalist by profession.

Yet, it is fashionable to maintain that there is no politics in the country and that the people are permanently condemned to suffer the “quarrels” of the “Two Ladies”, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia. As if, Hasina and Khaleda are not mortals like any other person. This is a simplistic –– and vulgar –– view.

The obsession with the idiosyncrasies of Hasina and Khaleda obscures the intense political struggle of three decades since the Awami League and the BNP installed Hasina and Khaleda, respectively, in the leadership of the two parties.

Days of politics as usual gone: The country’s decades-long political journey since mid-1970s has reached a critical juncture with the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. No longer will politics be as usual.

Politics in the country is defined broadly by two factors: the War of Independence of 1971 formed a national consensus on Bengali secular-socialist polity and that consensus was broken by the counter-revolution of August 15, 1975 which imposed Bangladeshi Islam-pasand communal politics and laissez-faire capitalism. Though the Fifteenth Amendment has restored the pre-’75 polity –– albeit, in a truncated manner, a political consensus on the Fifteenth Amendment is yet to evolve. Country’s politics remains divisive.

The main protagonists in the battle of polities are the Awami League and  the BNP, the former upholding the Spirit of ‘71 and the latter the post-’75 Islam-pasand polity.

There are many valid reasons for which one may detest the Awami League and the BNP or their leaders, but these two are the only parties that matter in the country’s politics at the present time. According to Election Commission statistics, the two parties together polled 82.2 per cent of votes cast in the 2008 general election –– the Awami League 49 per cent and the BNP 33.2 per cent.

This political matrix reflects the political reality of a period which ended with the Fifteenth Amendment. What standing the Awami League and the BNP will have by the time the next general election will be held in 2014 is anybody’s guess. The present article speculates on the conditions of the BNP.

A quiet burial: The BNP is handicapped by four developments. These are: a) the court judgment against the August 15, 1975 counter-revolution and the execution of the killers of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman; b) the court declaring the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution as unconstitutional; c) the court declaring, in the Fifth Amendment judgment, the government of General Ziaur Rahman, along with the governments of Khondaker Moshtaque Ahmed and Justice ASM Sayem, as unconstitutional; and  d) the restoration of Bengali nationalism, secularism and socialism as Fundamental Principles of State Policy through the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

General Zia bestowed legal and constitutional basis on the Islam-pasand polity, the process of which began with the 1975 counter-revolution, through the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. An irony is that the Islam-pasand polity suffered the most fatal blow during Khaleda’s prime ministership, in 2005, when a High Court Division of the Supreme Court declared the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution as well as the Zia regime as unconstitutional.

The Islam-pasand counter-revolution has been quietly buried with the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment. The Fifteenth Amendment has though attempted a fusion of ideologies between Islam and secularism by retaining Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim and Islam as the state religion in the Constitution. The attempted ideological fusion has given Islam-pasand politics a new lease of life without the now-defunct Islam-pasand polity. (The secular-socialist polity, as originally envisaged in the 1972 version of the Constitution, has not been re-instituted. Secularism has been given an Islamic veneer. And the principle of socialism finds its place in the Constitution merely as a totem of the liberation struggle. But this is a different story.)

The Awami League sits pretty in power, reinforced by the Fifteenth Amendment which guarantees its politics and, more crucially, re-establishes the legacies of Sheikh Mujib with a vengeance.

Uphill task: But, the BNP’s day of reckoning has arrived with the enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment. The party faces an uphill task of regrouping and retaining its position as an alternative to the Awami League as a ruling party while upholding Islam-pasand politics in a non-Islam-pasand polity.

The BNP is an Islam-pasand party with a difference. In the political vacuum created by the 1975 counter-revolution, General Zia conjured up the party with the help of the Cantonment as an anti-Awami League platform. Central to this party is not Islamic theology or Sharia laws but the political legacies of Zia: he is the father of Bangladeshi i.e. Bengali Muslim nationalism and founder of the post-’75 Islam-pasand polity. The BNP claims Zia is the “proclaimer of independence” which is, however, historically false.

The Fifteenth Amendment has nullified and smeared all the political legacies of Zia. There is no sign yet that the BNP has undertaken an active review of its politics in response to the Fifteenth Amendment.

Apart from the issues of politics, the BNP faces an impending leadership crisis. Khaleda Zia and Tarique Rahman, as the inheritors and custodians of General Zia’s politics and legacies, hold the BNP together. Tarique is practically in self-exile since 2008. Both the mother and son face a large number of court cases on charges of corruption, criminal offences or money laundering. Does a deluge await the BNP if Khaleda and Tarique are handicapped or become unable because of the cases to lead the party from the front –– particularly in election politics? For a power-centric party, as the BNP is, mass agitation, mass mobilisation or mass movements are a means to an end, which is winning elections and power. Success in street agitation does not necessarily translate into electoral victories or power.

The BNP will have to fight the cases against Khaleda, Tarique and other party leaders in the court and in the streets –– in an attempt to turn the cases into a political issue. In the recent past, Khaleda and the BNP failed miserably in their manoeuvres in politicising the issue of Khaleda’s eviction from her Dhaka Cantonment residence.

The siren call of mass upsurge: In the midst of daunting political and organisational challenges, Khaleda, true to her image of a street-smart politician, has gone for a total offensive against the government. She has asked the government to resign, called for a mass upsurge and demanded mid-term election along with the restoration of the system of non-party caretaker government which was abolished by the Fifteenth Amendment.

Mass upsurge, as distinct from a revolution or an insurrection, can neither be ordered to happen nor can it be organised by a political party though the activities of political parties may contribute towards an upsurge. Mass upsurge is unstructured spontaneous manifestation of popular discontent against the authorities which a political party may sometimes find handy to advance its own causes.

Khaleda is itching for a precipitate bout in power struggle through insurrection, euphemistically described as mass upsurge. This is a sign of desperation rather than astute leadership for the BNP is a party of elections.

There is nothing revolutionary about the demand for the restoration of non-party caretaker system. More than two years to pass before the next general election, this is at the moment an academic issue and may become a critical political issue only at the time of election, depending on the BNP’s political strength. With the rhetoric of insurrection, Khaleda has actually launched, wittingly or unwittingly, an unseasonal election campaign.

Caretaker issue may soon be overshadowed and overtaken by court events like the war crimes trial, trial of the cases of grenade attack on Hasina and 10-truck arms haul and the cases against Khaleda Zia, Tarique Rahman and Arafat Rahman Koko.

An uncertain future: Mass upsurge or election, the BNP will be as robust or as weak as is its politics.

* Will the BNP re-furbish its politics in the light of the restored fundamental principles of state policies and reconcile with Bengali nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism? If it does so, what political ideals and principles will differentiate it from the Awami League and other parties upholding secularism and socialism? And what will then be its equation with other Islam-pasand parties?

* If the BNP does not reform and persists with its Muslim communal politics of Bangladeshi nationalism variety and its strategic alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami, what political sympathy can it expect from a nation which is trying the war criminals?

* How will the BNP respond to the constitutional version of the freedom struggle which trashes its partisan narrative of the birth of Bangladesh in which Zia is the central figure?

* Most importantly, the distinctiveness of the BNP is that it is the party of the Islam-pasand polity Zia fabricated through martial law proclamations in a unique national, regional and global environment of the Cold War of yesteryear. There is no way of re-inventing that environment and restoring that particular variety of polity. Will the BNP then meet the fate of the Muslim League without Pakistan, Bakshal without the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution or the JSD without “scientific socialism” and Gano Bahini?

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NM Harun, now retired, was a journalist by profession.