Bangladesh: a democracy in crisis (The Guardian)

[muriel_volestrangler]

The prospective collapse of democracy in predominantly Sunni Muslim Bangladesh is raising concerns reaching far beyond the politically divided south Asian nation of 145 million people. A state of emergency and intervention by the army are distinct possibilities if already delayed elections fail on January 22. There are precedents aplenty: two presidents have died in military coups since independence from Pakistan in 1971 and the restoration of democracy in 1991 has if anything deepened the destructive enmity of the two main party leaders.

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The main beneficiaries of institutional failure could be violently militant Islamist fringe groups such as the Jagrata Muslim Janata and the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, opposed to the country's secular liberal tradition. The International Crisis Group links these organisations to an upsurge in terrorist violence in 2005, including the country's first suicide bombings. A crackdown brought respite last year - although at a high price to civil liberties, according to a Human Rights Watch investigation into alleged "death squad" activities of the feared paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion.
...
Increasingly influential, too, is the more moderate Jamaat e-Islami, part of the coalition administration led by Begum Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP), which left office last October. "The Jamaat is well placed to take advantage of continued political wrangling, though at present electoral success seems implausible," said Gareth Price in Chatham House's World Today magazine.

With an electoral boycott threatened by the main opposition party, Sheikh Hasina Wajed's Awami League (AL), and troops deployed on the streets amid escalating protests, the outlook was worrying, Mr Price said. "The use of violence as a form of political negotiation seems certain to continue as polling day approaches. It is likely that whoever loses will claim the poll was rigged and protests will continue."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1985993,00.html

[varun]

1. India is screwed...

two Islamic fundamentalist countries bordering it...not good.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. But both are small and weak compared to India

The Pakistani bomb is a threat, but I imagine that as India's military dominance increases, their ability to eliminate that threat will also increase.