What prospect for a political movement?

THE Awami League government may be criticised for a number of reasons: Rejecting dialogue with the BNP, deviating from an earlier promise of a mid-term poll, taking huge delegations out on tours overseas and keeping some bad apples in the Cabinet, as the expression goes. One of them, Latif Siddique, has been shown the door in compelling circumstances of his own creation.

What about a mini-cabinet reshuffle to drop a couple of ministers? They need no fresh introduction to be recognised for their carbon footprints, if you like?

Here the PM may be caught up in the John Kenneth Galbraith dictum: “Politics consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”

At any rate, even Hasina's worst detractors would agree that she has emerged on this other side of the turbulent phase last year -- unscathed, reenergised and keeping all the initiative in her hands. Not only that, she has grown in confidence and stature. A whole array of important countries have come forward to deal with her, sign contracts with her government.

  What exists matters and who can pull it off is a person to deal with. Sure, prickly reminders about non-participative January 5 poll as the one manifest in stopping further funding of an electoral project may come the government's way. In the main, however, the country's huge potential for growth, its sitting at the bridgehead of prospective geopolitical linkages and the dividends they promise are increasingly dawning on the international community. We are valued for what we can be more than what we are.

The iffy thing about politics will have to be resolved by mustering timely statesmanship somewhere down the line. And, at a time like this, political stability, not with any simmering underbelly but which is demonstratively upfront holds the key to leapfrogging into the middle-income bracket.

There is no second opinion in the country that a degenerate political movement of the type that preceded the January 5 election is totally unwelcome.

Along with terrorisation on the street, we hate to recall the nightmarish roller-coaster ride through one abortive mediation effort for talks upon another, as the national image touched a new low in the eye of the world. Remember, Taranco overtures under UN auspices finalising a 50-50 formula of representation of the ruling AL and then opposition BNP in a pre-poll government with important portfolios promised to BNP. But it all fell through purportedly due to a phone call from London insisting the PM should be no part of it. That was the end of a diligently worked-out accord within a striking distance.

The people don't want repeat of such infantile dramatics in the name of dialogue or talks.

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, once known for issuing deadlines to the government to meet her political demands, has changed the tack saying: “You cannot put a date on waging a movement.” True, you cannot; for, to launch a movement you need a right combination of objective conditions which again are limited by a shelf life.

This is a new-found realism, a sign of maturity on Khaleda Zia's part to reconcile herself to her situational reality. This also speaks of her resilience from what used to be a dourly uncompromising self-image.

Within her party the stalwarts are an aging lot. Although they have some fire left in them they are hemmed in by a plethora of cases. A prospect of time in jail looming, they face the challenge of being up to the task. They may not be ready for the hard tackles in a changed ballgame.

Yes, BNP had come out of hard times as during Ershad period but then the leaders were younger and more spirited three decades ago to gel as a coherent fighting unit. An undercurrent of tussle between politicians and ex-bureaucrats in the party is not helping either. Besides, Tareque Zia's churlish utterances and pulling strings from across the seven seas are presenting a faint replica of Hawa Bhaban to worrying senior party leaders.

The Chhatra Dal, once a body of Young Turks in the BNP, has grayed, too, non-students filling top slots.

Mutual distance between Jamaat and BNP has been yawning for some time; with the latter realising that the hyper-aggressive Jamaati style has earned it public displeasure and the former growing confident through some electoral victories standing on its own leg.

The Saradha terror financing and Burdman blast suspected to be linked to Jamaat and some other extremist groups in cross-border hand-holding presents a hitherto little known dimension to extremist networking. Mamata's name has been drawn vis-à-vis a BJP agenda for electoral inroads into West Bengal. Some keen observers tend to believe that Teesta accord with Bangladesh may not be far away.
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At any rate, now that BNP seems willing to sue for peace, this is the time for the ruling party to keep it engaged constructively. And if they have not learnt by the price they paid for their past obduracy, they will be only eroding their vote bank to the advantage of the other side.

There is a message from what the British statesman Aneurin Bevan said: “We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over” (The Observer 1953).

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.     
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