It is more fun wathcing cricket, Bangladesh thrashes Zimbabwe 5-0. There is much good news to celebrate in Bangladesh. Professor Yunus's Nobel Prize has greatly restored a sense of national esteem to a people used to being trashed. And then there is cricket. Bangladesh whitewashed fellow minnow Zimbabwe 5-0 and then blew away ICC Associate team Scotland 2-0. All would be great except that the political situation has never been as bad as it is now, dateline December 2006.
Several reasons may be proffered, but the root of it all is the absurd – or is it insane –conflict between the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The AL has vowed that elections will not be held under the present electoral schedule, while the BNP has declared that elections must be held under the same. Neither side is budging as of this writing, yet both parties are keen to go to the polls. The Awami has accused the BNP of having rigged the entire system, including the Election Commission, to ensure a return to power. The BNP says that the AL is trying to scuttle the elections because it knows it has no chance of victory.
The two hostile political alliances are now on the streets, engaged in violent agitation. Bodies have fallen and regular bloodletting is reported every day from all over the country – it is as common as the stones that fly when the partisans face each other.
The BNP of Begum Khaleda Zia, which has just left power to contest in the polls, heads a four-party alliance. The alliance includes the Jammat-e-Islami, considered condemnable for having opposed the nationalist war of 1971. The Jammat's core group of loyal voters helped the BNP come to power in 2001 – the alliance now holds tight because it knows the benefits of the embrace. The Awami leads a 14-party alliance and has been further strengthened by the presence of the Jatiyo Party of ex-President Hussain Mohammed Ershad – a dictator of the past but now a useful ally – and the recently formed Liberal Democratic Party, made up of ex-BNP veterans opposed to that party's leadership by Begum Zia and her family.