This coming January, Bangladesh will go to the polls to elect a government for the fifth time since military rule ended in 1990. During each past election, apart from the discredited February 1996 poll, strong anti-incumbency sentiment has resulted in a change of government, thereby allowing the two main parties, the Awami League (AL) and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), to alternate in power. Despite a strong record of formal democracy, both Bangladeshi and international analysts are expressing strong concerns about January's polls. Many fear that the results will be so marred by violence and corruption as to render them unacceptable. Some even worry that the existing situation may disallow the possibility of an election at all.
Politics, like much else in Bangladesh, has always been characterised by violence. After the bloody War of Independence in 1971, the country's first two prime ministers, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman, were both assassinated. Between 1974 and 1990, the country was governed largely under states of emergency or martial law. Intertwined political and familial histories have subsequently blighted the country's political landscape. Even as the upcoming election looms, the leaders of the two main political parties – the AL's Sheikh Hasina (daughter of Mujibur Rahman) and the BNP's Begum Khaleda Zia (wife of Ziaur Rahman) – are not able to so much as have a talk together about the national state of affairs.
The past three decades of deep personal animosity between the two leaders has stifled political discourse in Bangladesh generally. The Parliament is routinely boycotted by the opposition, so issues are fought out street-side through anti-government general strikes. Though these have become increasingly frequent, and perhaps more violent, in recent years, the pattern of the opposition eschewing dialogue in Parliament in favour of confrontation on the streets has held true no matter who sits in power.
Despite the uncertain political climate, Bangladesh has enjoyed an enviable growth rate averaging five percent over the past several years. However, rising economic performance has also resulted in an increasing polarisation between the country's rich and poor – an inequality that potentially adds to instability. Penniless beggars stand outside Bashundhara City, the mega-mall in central Dhaka that is claimed to be the largest shopping complex in Southasia. In rural areas, meanwhile, the situation has changed little.