Sheikh Hasina (Tungipara, 76 years old) has been elected five times as Prime Minister of Bangladesh, the eighth most populous country in the world with 170 million inhabitants. Under her leadership, the centre-left Awami League party took power for the first time in 1996 and, in two different periods, governed for 20 years. She became the hope for establishing a democratic Bangladesh after a turbulent period of war and military coups.
After her first term as prime minister, from 1996 to 2001, she spent several years in opposition, noted for her closeness to the Indian government. Since 2009, she has had four consecutive victories, the last in January 2024. Power came to her at the ballot box, the international community praised the country’s enormous progress, she was awarded prizes for her policies in favour of women… But her detractors accuse her of having ended up believing that power was hers and developing an authoritarian leadership that did not admit criticism or opposition.
The violent crackdown on student protests in recent weeks, in which more than 300 people have died and thousands more have been injured and arrested, has precipitated the end of Hasina’s government on August 5. It is the end of a period of increasing repression against any critical voice that dares to oppose her management.
He reign The speech of the longest-serving leader in the young democracy of Bangladesh ended with no more noise than that of the helicopter she boarded to India. She did not address the citizens who took to the streets to celebrate the moment. It is not the first time that the former president has been exiled from the country, nor the first time that she has ended up in India and seeking asylum in the United Kingdom, where she has already been and is now considering returning. Although her son says, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, This time he is leaving, at least not to return to politics.
Hasina is the eldest of five children, the daughter of the father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who declared the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, which until then was a territory of Pakistan. Her father became the first head of the new state and the leader of the Awami League. This charismatic leader was assassinated during a military coup on 15 August 1975, along with his wife and three sons. The only survivors were Hasina and her sister Rehana, who were living in Germany at the time.
Following the murder of her family, Hasina moved to the UK and was elected president of the Awami League in 1981, returning to Bangladesh with the intention of overthrowing the autocratic regime. She succeeded in doing so thanks to an unexpected alliance with her political rival Khaleda Zia, leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), to lead a popular uprising for democracy that overthrew military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad in 1990.
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Gradually, her critics accused her of becoming what she had once fought against. She clung to power and her former ally became an enemy. Khaleda Zia was accused of corruption in 2018 and imprisoned until the current uprisings, which allowed her to be released.
Bangladesh’s “solid growth and development trajectory” during Hasina’s terms, according to a World Bank analysis this April, has been accompanied and overshadowed by continued denunciations by human rights organizations, the opposition and civil society in the country about the authoritarian drift of its governments.
The violent repression of student protests in recent weeks is just one more chapter, the latest and bloodiest, in a string of abuses. The use of excessive force to contain protests was common, dissenting voices faced extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances or prison in a country where the death penalty is still in force. Amnesty International says so in its latest assessment of the country for the period 2018-2023.
Hasina had the data on her side to boast about her performance. Bangladesh dropped from the list of least developed countries on the planet to reach the lower-middle income level in 2015. Extreme poverty (living on less than $2.15 a day) fell from 11.8% in 2010 to 5% in 2022. Similarly, the World Bank notes, moderate poverty (less than $3.65 a day) fell from 49.6% to 30.0% in the same period. Gross domestic product grew by an average of 6% per year. “Human development outcomes improved in many dimensions, including reduced infant mortality and stunting, and increased literacy rates and access to electricity,” the organization says.
In December 2023, the magazine Forbes She was ranked 46th out of the 100 most powerful women in the world. But instead of focusing on praising her achievements, Hasina became obsessed with silencing critics and eliminating any opposition. And in July 2024, this exercise of force and repression against any hint of dissent got out of hand. Half a century after the loss that marked her career, her exile and rise, it was precisely the social rejection of the quota system for hiring civil servants, which reserved 30% of public jobs for relatives of the fighters of the liberation war against Pakistan led by her father, which triggered her final downfall.
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