Khaleda Zia's options
I was prompted to write after reading Mridul Chowdhury's article “What Sheikh Hasina should do now.” In the wake of a mesmerizing election, the article aptly calls upon Sheikh Hasina to make good on the promises she made in the early hours of her campaign and take other steps which are long due in the interest of this country.
While the entire nation watches Hasina with intense curiosity in anticipation of a sweeping change, we should also turn toward Khaleda Zia and ask how she intends to continue to serve the people of Bangladesh, despite a crippling blow.
No matter how smoothly an electoral process goes, a losing candidate receives comfort in labelling the process as illegitimate or biased. But after a long political imbroglio the results of the 9th parliamentary election clearly indicates that the people of Bangladesh have chosen to side with Sheikh Hasina, leaving only a handful of parliamentary seats to Begum Zia. Does this mean that her political career is over? It depends on how she sees this. If to her the idea of political career means nothing less than securing the coveted seat of prime minister, then she might as well retire from politics. But if the value of public service outweighs the lustre of a the seat of prime minister, then she is still in the game.
When the dust from election revelry settles and she has time to think, I believe Begum Zia should take a long hard look at her last administration and how she ran it. Apart from that she should also try to analyse why the voting result turned out the way it did. Her platform was not much different from that of Sheikh Hasina. So, what could have been the biggest negative factor? I believe her alliance with the Jamaat played a big role. When the people of Bangladesh are trying to establish a modern democracy they can't be held back by the theocratic mindsets of the mullahs. To get a better understanding of this we need not look farther than our neighbouring countries of Pakistan and India. A recent attack in Mumbai, allegedly carried out by Islamic fundamentalists, has seriously strained the working relationship of the two countries. If any lesson she should have taken from this is the idea of not mingling the business of state with religion.
Never in our history have we had an election under such watchful eyes of security forces and of course of vigilant poll watchers. And the voter turnout was also phenomenal. Despite having lost, Begum Zia has much to do for this country if she truly considers herself a public servant. She has two diametrically opposing paths she can choose from. She can choose the path of non-participation and resume the tactics of paralysing the country with violence which may force the country back to what we are leaving behind.
The other path leads to her cooperation and working with Sheikh Hasina in a bipartisan manner. Once she is in parliament, she will have plenty of opportunities to introduce meaningful legislations to bring about positive changes to this country that she so dearly wants to serve.
I hope that as a seasoned politician she will choose the latter path and earn back the trust of the people of this country.
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