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Tensions are rising between Bangladesh and the West as the United States pressures Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian government to ensure the integrity of upcoming elections.
Sheikh Hasina, who has been in power since 2009, has cracked down on political opposition and restricted democratic freedoms, a move that analysts say is an attempt to influence the outcome of polls expected in January.
The United States last month imposed visa restrictions on an unknown number of Bangladeshis, citing “undermining the democratic electoral process.” The State Department said law enforcement officials, members of the ruling party and the political opposition were among them.
Britain has also put pressure on Sheikh Hasina’s government to ensure elections are “free, fair, participatory and peaceful”.
The Bangladeshi government has pushed back against Western condemnation. Foreign Minister Abdul Momen said visa policy was Washington’s “prerogative”, but in an interview with the Financial Times in Dhaka last month he dismissed criticism of the election build-up as “an attack on the country”. Bangladesh’s false propaganda” and compared it with Western intervention in Bangladesh. Iraq and elsewhere.
“Look at Iraq, what have you done in the name of false propaganda?” He said that some people in the West may want to “create chaos” in Bangladesh.
After the visa restrictions were imposed, Momen told the Financial Times that he had been advising world leaders to “correctly check the facts” on the situation in Bangladesh.
“Unfortunately, people are pressed for time these days and don’t have the habit of reading,” he said while attending the United Nations General Assembly in the United States.
He added that despite this, his relationship with U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken was “very good.”
Any tensions could spill over into regional geopolitics. Sheikh Hasina has been instrumental in driving the country of 170 million people to development success, driven largely by its massive apparel industry, which relies on exports to the United States and Europe. She also developed closer ties with India and China.
The country’s domestic politics is marred by a decades-long bloody rivalry between the Awami League and the rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Sheikh Hasina’s previous re-elections in 2014 and 2018 were plagued by low participation and accusations of election rigging.
The U.S. State Department said its visa penalties reflected “our concerns about actions that undermine democracy and human rights in Bangladesh,” adding that it supported “the desire of the people of Bangladesh to freely choose their leaders.”
The last round of U.S. sanctions in 2021 targeted Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion, a police force accused of disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow at the Wilson Center, a think tank in Washington, said Washington’s pressure on elections is part of a regional strategy to limit China’s influence by promoting democracy as an alternative to authoritarian governments.
“The Biden administration has made Bangladesh a test case for its values-based foreign policy,” he said. “It’s a big gamble… If Dhaka starts to feel increasingly besieged by Washington, it may be inclined to move closer to China.”
Kugelman said retaining power could be a matter of life or death for Sheikh Hasina, who ruled Bangladesh from 1996 to 2001. Under the Awami League, senior BNP leaders have been dogged by legal cases and thousands of activists have been arrested.
If the Awami League loses power, “they may be subject to a brutal and retaliatory political campaign…”. . Just like the measures taken by the ruling party against the opposition parties,” he said.
“If Awami League leaders are bent on retaining power at all costs, the threat of US visa restrictions will not deter them.”
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