BNP Landslide Opens a ‘Bangladesh 2.0’ Chapter (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Rajini Vaidyanathan. Well, let's return to those results coming into us from Bangladesh, where the Nationalist Party there, the BNP, has won a landslide victory in the elections there. Well, the party's leader and Prime Minister in waiting, Tariq Rahman, has been congratulated by the US Embassy in Dhaka and by India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Well, let's now speak to the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, Rupa Huq. She has a longstanding interest in Bangladesh. Her parents are from there, and also she's visited the country on a number of occasions in a parliamentary capacity as well. Welcome to BBC News, Rupa. So first of all, these elections were really landmark for the country after years of authoritarian rule under Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League. We saw that uprising, young people taking to the streets. Now we have Tariq Rahman as a prime minister in waiting. He's someone who's visited the country after that uprising. What do you think comes next?

[00:01:02] Speaker 2: I mean, it's time for a fresh start. And the UNICEF interim government, the caretaker government that was overseeing these elections, I think their idea was to stabilise and then let people have a say. They always branded the country as Bangladesh 2.0. So yeah, I mean, obviously it's a reset. But there are concerns that the ruling party for the last three elections wasn't included this time round. I mean, let's see what happens. There were fears that it could have been an Islamist takeover, that the country may be going in the direction of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan. That did not come to fruition. So I guess it's a sigh of relief. But yeah, a lot of work to be done and an entree from hell, I guess.

[00:01:47] Speaker 1: Indeed an entree from hell. For our viewers that perhaps don't follow Bangladeshi politics as closely as you or I do, just outline what you think some of those biggest challenges in the entree are. It's not just about democracy in the country, but also Bangladesh is a growing economic nation as well, really.

[00:02:06] Speaker 2: That's right. I think under Sheikh Hasina, they were trying to join the BRICS nations, because the economy was doing really well. But then again, if that's off the back of fast fashion in collapsing factories where child labour is being used to create it, that's not great either. So yeah, I mean, they were trying to do that. And then all this happened. So I think there's a lot of youth unemployment. That's partly the riots, the overthrow of the last prime minister, jobs for the boys, nepotism, the Rohingya issue, a million refugees from there. And I mean, it has been a fundamental break of before it was seen as the battling Begums, these two sari-clad mums that slugged it out from the 90s onwards. So that should be positive. But then the guy who's won is the son of one of them.

[00:02:54] Speaker 1: Well, I was about to say, the viewers, you wouldn't know that Khalida Zia was, as you say, the other Bangladesh's first prime minister, in fact, but a kind of key rival of Sheikh Hasina, two strong women who ruled the country on and off, back and forth. But Tariq Rahman is Khalida Zia's son.

[00:03:12] Speaker 2: I mean, it does look like what the students fought for, the youth, if it's the guy who's part of that same hereditary. They don't have a house of lords. They don't have a royal family. Seems very hereditary there. And these two women even got there by family connection. Sheikh Hasina's dad was the first ruler of Bangladesh in the 70s. And it's also quite a sort of violent, bloody country that's, I don't know, been characterised by a lot of vengeance politics. Khalida Zia, her husband was a ruler. So again, this guy, Tariq Rahman, his mum and dad have both been rulers of the country. But he is saying that he will, I mean, I guess the fact that he's been in Kingston, Surrey, for the last 17 years in exile, that's made him open to more British ideas. And I think there was a big Time interview that said it's Tariq Rahman 2.0. Because again, he was originally in exile here because there were corruption charges against him, I think, by a former caretaker government. Because the system they used to have there was they alternated in power, because always the year before the election, a neutral administration of judges would oversee that. So it wasn't fixed. But then I think in the Hasina year, she deleted that clause. So then it got stuck in a groove for three elections.

[00:04:29] Speaker 1: Just briefly, you mentioned Sheikh Hasina. She is currently in hiding in exile in India. And that's caused tensions between Bangladesh and India in the last year or so. She is wanted for a number of crimes, accused of torturing her opponents, rounding up her opponents from the now seem to be ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party. But the question is, what do you think he might do to try and seek justice for all the people who were tortured, whose loved ones were disappeared, all these accusations that still remain against the Awami League government ruled by Sheikh Hasina?

[00:05:08] Speaker 2: I mean, I think international law is always a good guide. So the United Nations pronounced that 1,400 students that were mostly young, unarmed, yeah, sort of not combatants were killed in that period in 2024. So I think how it's been explained to me why the Awami League was excluded is that they sort of won't accept any of that UN funding. I guess something has to budge if everyone's in a corner with their arms folded. So I'm hoping that this new BNP, because again, they had a history of dodgy stuff, apparently, when they were in power last time. I just hope that everyone, this 2.0 thing, and maybe he could be a bridge because the students wanted to form their own party as well. I think that slightly collapsed and then they merged with the Jamaat Islamist Party, which raised eyebrows. I mean, I'm disappointed not more women have been elected. And again, one of the ones standing was Tariq Rahman's daughter, who's the granddaughter of the dynasty. I mean, if it's just a sort of vengeance thing, lock up the other side, have an election, one side sits it out, rinse and repeat, do it again. It's not a satisfactory system. I really hope this can be the start of something new.

[00:06:17] Speaker 1: And just very briefly, do you think the Labour government is going to hold this government to account and make sure that if there are any abuses, or indeed make sure that the conviction on Hasina, things like that, I'm just talking about what can the Labour government do in your view to make sure that things are a 2.0 government?

[00:06:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess democracy building, bundled in with that election was a referendum on things like having a bicameral chamber, having two parliaments, like we've got the Lords and the Commons, on having term limits, on having even possibly a PR system, because they've got first past the post. So maybe we, because that's obviously the colonial thing, the Commonwealth relationship, maybe we should help them with democracy building. And as I say, seeking justice, as you were alluding to, for the baddies of the past.

[00:07:05] Speaker 1: Okay, Rupa Haque, thank you very much for joining us in the studio to get your perspective on the result in Bangladesh.