Dhaka, Bangladesh — Hours after Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League was declared the landslide winner in Sunday’s election, which the opposition had boycotted, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina hosted a queue of overseas diplomats, every coming to congratulate her.
The envoys of India, the Philippines, Singapore and different nations have been there. Additionally visiting the prime minister have been the ambassadors of Russia and China.
In Washington and London, in the meantime, the governments of the UK and the USA criticised the election as illegitimate. US State Division spokesperson Matthew Miller, in a press release, mentioned that Washington believed the voting course of was “not free and truthful, and we remorse that not all events participated”. The UK criticised what it described as “acts of intimidation and violence” in the course of the election.
Bangladesh’s response? “We’re not bothered,” overseas minister AK Abdul Momen mentioned on Tuesday, when requested in regards to the feedback from the US and the UK.
That distinction between the West’s condemnation and the welcoming embrace of China and Russia is a window into probably dramatic overseas coverage penalties of Hasina’s return to energy, say political analysts and economists. For the West, Hasina’s rising ties with China and Russia, on prime of Bangladesh’s rejection of its considerations over the election, might poison ties with Dhaka. However that in flip might find yourself pushing Dhaka even nearer to Beijing and Moscow.
Dhaka-based political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman mentioned he believes there’s a chance of the US imposing visa restrictions and focused sanctions towards people who performed key roles within the conduct of the election, which impartial screens have criticised for violence and intimidation towards the ruling get together’s political opponents. In August, the US had declared a primary set of constraints on visas for some Bangladeshi officers.
However doing so, he mentioned, might jeopardise US plans to rope Bangladesh into its technique to steadiness the rise of China, particularly with the deepening financial ties between Dhaka and Beijing. China has been Bangladesh’s prime buying and selling accomplice for greater than a decade – a interval throughout which Hasina has dominated uninterrupted.
“The brand new authorities will discover it very difficult to work deeply with the US’s Indo-Pacific technique that really is a coverage to comprise China,” Rahman mentioned.
Russia, in the meantime, has supported Bangladesh in opening the nation’s first nuclear energy plant. Dhaka obtained the primary provide of uranium from Moscow in October. Russia can also be a significant provider of three important commodities – gasoline, meals grains and fertilisers – to Bangladesh at comparatively inexpensive costs. “If the West led by the US goes very coercive with the brand new authorities, then Bangladesh ties with Russia will develop quick,” Rahman mentioned.
That geopolitical calculus poses challenges for the West, mentioned consultants. Will probably be tough for the US and its allies to go about enterprise as regular with Bangladesh. However it’s unclear how far they may go in attempting to harm Hasina’s authorities.
The West “will face a critical dilemma,” mentioned Ali Riaz, professor and political scientist at Illinois State College.
But, Bangladesh, too, faces powerful decisions.
The nation’s attire business, which employs 4 million staff, clocked exports price $47bn in 2023 – 84 p.c of the nation’s complete exports. The US is the only largest export vacation spot for Bangladeshi clothes.
Nonetheless, just lately, eight US Congress members wrote to the American Attire and Footwear Affiliation to strain Dhaka on truthful wages and labour rights in Bangladesh. A number of staff have been killed in clashes with safety forces throughout avenue protests searching for a elevate in minimal wages. Bangladesh’s embassy in Washington has cautioned its authorities in Dhaka that the nation’s ready-made clothes sector might develop into a goal of Western measures.
It’s a priority that economist Mustafizur Rahman shares. “If the US and the EU take any punitive measure within the type of extra tariff or sanctions, then there’ll after all be an adversarial affect,” Rahman, a distinguished fellow on the Dhaka-based Centre for Coverage Dialogue, advised Al Jazeera. Bangladesh’s dependence on garment exports makes it notably weak to any such concentrating on, he mentioned.
And any ensuing financial turmoil would solely push Bangladesh even additional in direction of China. “It’s not as a result of the Western international locations might both put extra strain or recalibrate its coverage, however as a result of the continuing financial disaster would require deep-pocket help and there shall be rising ideological affinity between these two international locations’ management,” mentioned Riaz at Illinois State College.
In Dhaka, Awami League spokesperson Mahbubul Alam Hanif insisted that Sunday’s election wouldn’t have an effect on the federal government’s relations with the West.
“We have now improvement companions they usually usually give ideas, together with to strengthen democracy, however I don’t suppose Sunday’s election impacts US-Bangladesh ties,” Hanif mentioned.
How the re-elected Awami League authorities handles politics post-election might additionally decide the strain on the US and its allies to behave towards Bangladesh.
Since mid-August final 12 months, greater than 27,200 members of the principle opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Occasion have been imprisoned and no less than 104,000 have been sued on totally different fees, in line with BNP figures. At the very least 27 BNP males even have been killed in political violence since October.
With a supermajority in parliament – the Awami League gained 222 of 300 seats, and lots of the greater than 60 independents who gained are former members of the ruling get together who have been allegedly requested to contest to offer a veneer of a struggle – opposition leaders count on the federal government to focus on them much more.
BNP chief Kayser Kamal mentioned the “illegitimate” authorities would intensify its crackdown on opponents to divert consideration from the “sham” election.
Riaz agreed. “Bangladesh is turning into a de facto one-party state,” he mentioned. The federal government, he mentioned, would “undertake extra repressive measures, attempt to decimate any sort of opposition via authorized and extra-legal measures”.
