A lot still to be done

On 6 January, Sheikh Hasina’s government in Bangladesh will complete its first year in office. During the campaign, she had made a bag of promises, prioritising five issues:
– economic progress,
– elimination of poverty and inequity,
– effective action against corruption,
– establishment of good governance in the sense of suppression of terrorism and extremism as well as judicial independence, and
– enhancement of energy security.

Today, Hasina’s coalition controls 262 out of 300 seats in Parliament (excluding 45 reserved seats for women). It is strong enough to change the constitution. Its electoral triumph, however, was not only due to its campaign promises. Popular dissatisfaction with previous governments also played a role. There had been five years of abusive rule of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), followed by a military intervention in 2006, when it became clear that the BNP was going to manipulate elections. A military-backed care-taker government next pledged to clean up governance, but did not achieve much. Hasina herself spent a year in jail, accused of corruption.

Hasina’s government has initiated an array of economic reforms. It wants to create jobs for those who need them, and has increased spending on social welfare and safety nets. A special subsidy for agriculture has been introduced. But in spite of such efforts, the government has not achieved much. Indeed, people recently witnessed an “investment drought”, with a lack of domestic entrepreneurship exacerbating the impact of the global financial crisis.

The government has failed to deliver on its promise to control commodity prices. Essential goods are still beyond the reach of the common people, with far-reaching implications for poverty and public health. Hasina’s actions to improve the ailing health sector are few and far between, and the poor in particular continue to suffer from the lack of hospitals and medical care.

Hasina’s government promised to solve the nation’s electricity problems by 2011. To date, it has not achieved much except for turning the clock back by one hour to save daylight.

Hasina has particularly failed in reforming the political and legal institutions of accountability. The promised “genuine” independence of the judiciary rings hollow as recent appointments to the Supreme Court were tainted by political considerations. The Judicial Pay Commission’s report has been largely overlooked. Parliament has not become a national platform of political deliberation. The Anti-Corruption Commission has lost substantial power because the government did not endorse a number of amendments made by the caretaker government.

The government is facing more daunting security challenges now than it did during Hasina’s first term in power 1996 to 2000. One example was the still unexplained bloody mutiny among the country’s boarder force, the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), in February. To Hasina’s merit, the perpetrators have been put on trial.

Hasina’s government did succeded in stemming the rise of religious extremism in Bangladesh so far. Her government has been vigilant against the rise of terrorist groups and extremists, outlawing a number of organisations and arresting many members. Such success, however, is overshadowed by chaos in the field of public works and procurements, where her party is apparently serving its cronies. Moreover, there have been instances of human-rights violations and killings by law-enforcing agencies.

The government is also working on the nation’s coming to terms with the traumatic history of its birth. It has pushed ahead with the trial of war criminals of the 1971 liberation war and the conclusion of the trial of the murder of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh and father of Sheikh Hasina, in 1975.

Before the elections, people had hoped for a new dawn of change and progress. Now they are becoming increasingly di­sillusioned. According to a recent ADB survey, people have less confidence in the government than they did in January. The government’s success in future will largely depend on living up to the promises it made rather than making new ones.