The aging ‘uncle’ seeking to bring down Bangladesh PM Hasina
DHAKA: An octogenarian former comrade of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s father in the country’s independence struggle is now the face of an embattled opposition seeking to end her decade-long rule increasingly tainted by accusations of authoritarianism.
In a general election due next month, Hasina’s ruling Awami League will be fighting to retain power against a new alliance led by Kamal Hossain, an Oxfordeducated international jurist who drafted the country’s constitution — and whom Hasina grew up calling ‘kaka’, or uncle.
The 82-year-old lawyer says his decision to forge an alliance with the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was critical to restoring democracy in the country.
Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh’s independence hero Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is the longest serving leader in its short history. She began a second straight term in power in 2014, after an election boycotted by the BNP and shunned by international observers, with more than half the seats uncontested.
“What has happened in the last five years is unprecedented,” Hossain told Reuters in an interview.
“We have never had a government for five years that was unelected.”
Hasina and BNP chief Khaleda Zia share a long and bitter rivalry and have alternated in power for most of the past 28 years. But the BNP has been in disarray since Khaleda was jailed on corruption charges, which she denies, early this year.
The BNP’s participation in the Dec. 30 election was in doubt until last month, when it and three other parties announced the formation of a new alliance, the Jatiya Oikya Front, or National Unity Front, helmed by Hossain, who runs a group called Gano Forum, or People’s Forum.
Hossain walks with a stick, and says he is not seeking to become prime minister as he is too old.
But some in the coalition, he said, privately compare him to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the Malaysian prime minister who took power aged 92 earlier this year, after defeating a predecessor mired in graft allegations.
“Maybe his health is better than mine,” quipped Hossain.
Hossain was born to a physician father under British rule in what is now Kolkata in eastern India. That was before the division into India and Pakistan, out of which Bangladesh was carved following a war in 1971. He was jailed alongside Hasina’s father, and later served him as the country’s first law minister. — Reuters