Demonstrators armed with sticks crossing the gardens of a tidy residence of bricks ransacking the interior, take on paintings, take lines of sheets, bulbs, decorative elements or office equipment, all under the gaze of an accomplice army. On Monday, the Ganabhaban Palace, residence of the Prime Ministers of Bangladesh, was taken by storm by a crowd of 1,500 angry demonstrators. Sheikh Hasina, holder of the function, had fled by helicopter towards India shortly before the facts, without even having time to record a farewell message.
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators paraded in the streets of the Bangladaise capital on the same day to claim his resignation, 432 people who were killed in a repression that had lasted for 36 days. The insurrection had culminated when the protesters had set fire to cars, police stations or houses belonging to the leaders of the ruling party, the Awami League.
In the process, the chief of the army, General Waker-Uz-Zaman, announced the constitution of an interim government and the President of the Republic, Mohammad Shahabuddin, the dissolution of Jatiya Bangsad, the Bangladais Monocameral Parliament.
According to Olivier Guillard, a researcher at the Applied Geography Institute of Geography and Director of Crisis 24, the former Prime Minister locked himself up in poor governance, clientelist and authoritarian with strong repression, the economic dynamism of the past decade being done on the back of public freedoms. “It is an eternal political beginning in this part of Asia, the army had already ended the start of democratic experience in 1975, it was she, once again, who withdrew her support for Sheikh Hasina and invited her to leave power”.
A Gaston Doumergue Tropical
Like a Gaston Doumergue Tropical, Muhammad Yunus, nicknamed the banker of the poor and popular in the country for having reduced poverty thanks to his work on microcredit, is the one who has succeeded in making consensus between the army, the Presidency of the Republic and the student collectives who had triggered the revolt. For Olivier Guillard, “Political leaders have a bad reputation, Muhammad Yunus was the only one whose probity is not called into question and he is not a professional politician either”.
It all started on July 1 by student demonstrations against recruitment quotas in the public service, a system of positive discrimination reserving 44 % of places for veterans of the war of independence and their descendants, for religious minorities (including the Hindus who represent 8 % of the country and are victims of violence since the start of the week) and ethnic, disabled or people from so -called under-represented. Accused of perpetuating a system promoting the affidals of power, the quotas had been eliminated in 2018 and restored by a judgment of the Supreme Court on June 5, arousing the ire of students worried for their professional future.
A country in full development plagued by misery
Nicknamed the “iron blunder”, Sheikh Hasina will have exercised power for fifteen years: his personal history is rooted in that of the country. His father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose museum was burnt down and the statue put down by the rioters, had founded a secular inspiration party, the Awami League, and proclaimed independence from Pakistan on March 26, 1971.
In three mandates, the ex-government of the government will have multiplied GDP per capita by more than 3.5 (from 699 to 2,529 dollars) and the country’s GDP by more than four (from 102 to 437 billion dollars), thanks in particular to the boom in the textile industry, whose competitive advantage lies in the low wages of workers, leaving whole people Inflation exceeded 10 % last year.
Towards a rapprochement with Pakistan to the detriment of India?
The task of the new government will first be to organize free elections. Faced with the Awami League will stand the Nationalist Party of Bangladesh (BNP), more sensitive to Islamic politico-religious themes, which has exercised power five times since independence and is led by Khaleda Zia, also twice Prime Minister.
For Olivier Guillard, the Indian influence is essential on the political life of the country, the Awami League being traditionally closer to New Delhi and the BNP of Islamabad. For the next elections, which should be held within three months in view of the country’s incandescent atmosphere, “The BNP could make a return in force and the Islamist parties should progress, unless Muhammad Yunus creates his own political training, in which case he could win the bet”.
