Her critics say Sheikh Hasina, who once fought for democracy in Bangladesh, now threatens it
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was Bangladesh’s opposition leader in 2007, when troops raided her home and took her to a court in the capital of Dhaka, where she was arrested on extortion charges.
Ms. Hasina, who had served as premier in 19962001, slammed the charges as a conspiracy to keep her from running in upcoming polls. She was fighting for the rights of her people, she said, in a Bangladesh trapped under a militarybacked interim government.
She was given a choice: leave the country or stay in jail, according to a close associate. She opted to stay — 11 months later, she was released and in 2008, she was re-elected prime minister.
Today, she is the longestserving leader in the history of Bangladesh, a predominantly Muslim nation of over 160 million people strategically located between India and Myanmar, and is set to tighten her grip on power in Sunday’s general election. The vote follows Ms. Hasina’s 15-year-rule that saw her turn from a leader fighting for democracy to, critics say, one of its biggest threats.
Ms. Hasina’s main rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, is boycotting the polls, saying her government cannot ensure a fair vote. That sets the stage for the 76-yearold premier to secure her fourth consecutive and fifth overall term in office.
Her supporters say Ms. Hasina and her Awami League have given them a new Bangladesh. Where there were frequent power cuts, there is now industry.
More girls are going to school, development projects are humming and the stability she brought has staved off military coups that have shaken the nation’s turbulent history.
In the middle are disenchanted voters who see little chance of changing the status quo.
How it all began
Ms. Hasina’s political life was shaped by the Aug. 15, 1975, military coup and assassination of her father, Sheikh Mujib Rahman, the first leader of independent Bangladesh.
That night, while 28-yearold Ms. Hasina was in Germany with her younger sister, army officers burst into the family’s Dhaka home and killed her parents, three other siblings and the household staff — 18 people in all.
Some say the brutal act pushed her to consolidate unprecedented power. It was also what motivated her throughout her political career, analysts say.
“Hasina has one very powerful quality as a politician — and that is to weaponize trauma,” said Avinash Paliwal, a senior lecturer specializing in South Asian strategic affairs at SOAS University of London.
To Ms. Hasina, her father was the founder of independent Bangladesh after its forces, aided by India, defeated Pakistan in 1971. At the heart of her ambitions was to create the nation he envisioned, according to the associate, who worked closely with Ms. Hasina.
“She felt her father’s work was cut short, and that only she could complete it,” the associate told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the matter.
After the assassination, Ms. Hasina lived for years in exile in India, then made her way back to Bangladesh and took over the helm of Awami League. But the military rulers had her in and out of house detention all through the 1980s until, after general elections in 1996, she became prime minister for the first time.
Two women, two parties
What followed was a decadeslong power struggle between Ms. Hasina and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, the chief of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, now ailing and under house arrest.
The two women ran the country alternatively for years in a bitter rivalry that polarized Bangladesh politics. Ms. Hasina has often accused the BNP of courting hard-line extremists that her party, which calls itself moderate and secular, had worked to stamp out, while Zia’s BNP claims the Awami League is using oppressive tactics to stay in power.
Analysts, however, say that while they project different ideologies, both parties are tainted by a history of electoral violence and politics of retribution.
Recently, Ms. Hasina’s government accused the BNP of arson and sabotage after a fire on a passenger train killed four people in December, claiming the opposition was trying to create chaos ahead of the election. The BNP denied the accusation.
Years of turmoil
Ms. Hasina’s party lost the 2001 general election, after which she again became the leader of the opposition. Political violence, unrest and military interventions marked the following years until she was re-elected in 2008.
This time, she fixed her sights on the economy and built infrastructure previously unseen in Bangladesh. A strong electricity grid that reaches far-flung villages; big-ticket projects such as highways, rail lines and ports. The country’s garment industry became one of the world’s most competitive.
Abdul Halim, a rickshaw puller in Dhaka, says he is not a supporter of the prime minister, but “Hasina gave us electricity.”
“I thought my family would never have power at home. Now my entire village has electricity,” he said.
The development gains sparked other advances — girls were educated on par with boys, and an increasing swell of women joined the workforce. Those close to her describe Ms. Hasina as being very hands-on and passionate about uplifting women and poor people. Her supporters also credit her with neutralizing a growing threat of Islamic militancy.
According to Mohammad A. Arafat, an Awami League lawmaker in Dhaka, what Ms. Hasina has done for Bangladesh’s economic development “has been phenomenal.”
The vote
Ahead of the election, Ms. Hasina flaunted some of her signature achievements, such as Dhaka’s metro or the country’s longest bridge, which she inaugurated in 2021. She has cast herself as the leader of an impoverished nation aspiring to become an upper-middle-income country by 2031.
“Bangladesh will never look back again,“Ms. Hasina said in 2023. ”It will continue marching to be a smart, developed and prosperous country.”
But the recent global economic slowdown has not spared Bangladesh, exposing cracks in its economy that have triggered labor unrest and dissatisfaction with the government.
Mohammed Shohid, a driver in Dhaka, said the government has failed to stop price hikes of essential goods — prices of beans and tomatoes have nearly doubled in the past two years. “We cannot afford them anymore,” he said.
Ms. Hasina’s critics say her government has used harsh tools to muzzle dissent, shrink press freedoms and curtail civil society. Rights groups cite forced disappearances of critics. The government rejects the accusations.
In the 2018 election, an AL-led alliance won 96% of the parliament seats amid widespread allegations of vote-rigging, which authorities denied. In 2014, all major opposition parties boycotted the vote.
The BNP says about 20,000 of its members have been arrested in recent months on trumped-up charges ahead of Sunday’s vote, and tens of thousands of their supporters have rallied on the streets, with some protests turning violent.
With Zia under house arrest and other party leaders behind bars or in exile, observers say Ms. Hasina’s next term is practically guaranteed.