Dhaka, Bangladesh — Hours after Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League was declared the landslide winner in Sunday’s election, which the opposition had boycotted, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina hosted a queue of international diplomats, every coming to congratulate her.
The envoys of India, the Philippines, Singapore and different nations have been there. Additionally visiting the prime minister have been the ambassadors of Russia and China.
In Washington and London, in the meantime, the governments of the UK and the USA criticised the election as illegitimate. US State Division spokesperson Matthew Miller, in a press release, mentioned that Washington believed the voting course of was “not free and fair, and we remorse that not all events participated”. The UK criticised what it described as “acts of intimidation and violence” through the election.
Bangladesh’s response? “We’re not bothered,” international minister AK Abdul Momen mentioned on Tuesday, when requested in regards to the feedback from the US and the UK.
That distinction between the West’s condemnation and the welcoming embrace of China and Russia is a window into doubtlessly dramatic international coverage penalties of Hasina’s return to energy, say political analysts and economists. For the West, Hasina’s rising ties with China and Russia, on prime of Bangladesh’s rejection of its issues over the election, might poison ties with Dhaka. However that in flip might find yourself pushing Dhaka even nearer to Beijing and Moscow.
Dhaka-based political analyst Zahed Ur Rahman mentioned he believes there’s a chance of the US imposing visa restrictions and focused sanctions towards people who performed key roles within the conduct of the election, which impartial screens have criticised for violence and intimidation towards the ruling occasion’s political opponents. In August, the US had declared a primary set of constraints on visas for some Bangladeshi officers.
However doing so, he mentioned, might jeopardise US plans to rope Bangladesh into its technique to stability the rise of China, particularly with the deepening financial ties between Dhaka and Beijing. China has been Bangladesh’s prime buying and selling accomplice for greater than a decade – a interval throughout which Hasina has dominated uninterrupted.
“The brand new authorities will discover it very difficult to work deeply with the US’s Indo-Pacific technique that truly is a coverage to include China,” Rahman mentioned.
Russia, in the meantime, has supported Bangladesh in opening the nation’s first nuclear energy plant. Dhaka acquired the primary provide of uranium from Moscow in October. Russia can be a serious provider of three important commodities – gas, meals grains and fertilisers – to Bangladesh at comparatively inexpensive costs. “If the West led by the US goes very coercive with the brand new authorities, then Bangladesh ties with Russia will develop quick,” Rahman mentioned.
That geopolitical calculus poses challenges for the West, mentioned consultants. Will probably be troublesome for the US and its allies to go about enterprise as traditional with Bangladesh. However it’s unclear how far they could go in making an attempt to harm Hasina’s authorities.
The West “will face a severe dilemma,” mentioned Ali Riaz, professor and political scientist at Illinois State College.
But, Bangladesh, too, faces powerful decisions.
The nation’s apparel industry, which employs 4 million employees, clocked exports price $47bn in 2023 – 84 % of the nation’s complete exports. The US is the one largest export vacation spot for Bangladeshi clothes.
Nevertheless, lately, eight US Congress members wrote to the American Attire and Footwear Affiliation to stress Dhaka on truthful wages and labour rights in Bangladesh. A number of employees have been killed in clashes with safety forces throughout road protests in search of a increase in minimal wages. Bangladesh’s embassy in Washington has cautioned its authorities in Dhaka that the nation’s ready-made clothes sector might grow to be a goal of Western measures.
It’s a priority that economist Mustafizur Rahman shares. “If the US and the EU take any punitive measure within the type of further tariff or sanctions, then there’ll after all be an adversarial affect,” Rahman, a distinguished fellow on the Dhaka-based Centre for Coverage Dialogue, instructed Al Jazeera. Bangladesh’s dependence on garment exports makes it notably susceptible to any such focusing on, he mentioned.
And any ensuing financial turmoil would solely push Bangladesh even additional in the direction of China. “It’s not as a result of the Western nations might both put extra stress or recalibrate its coverage, however as a result of the continuing financial disaster would require deep-pocket help and there shall be rising ideological affinity between these two nations’ management,” mentioned Riaz at Illinois State College.
In Dhaka, Awami League spokesperson Mahbubul Alam Hanif insisted that Sunday’s election wouldn’t have an effect on the federal government’s relations with the West.
“We have now growth companions and so they typically give ideas, together with to strengthen democracy, however I don’t suppose Sunday’s election impacts US-Bangladesh ties,” Hanif mentioned.
How the re-elected Awami League authorities handles politics post-election might additionally decide the stress on the US and its allies to behave towards Bangladesh.
Since mid-August final 12 months, greater than 27,200 members of the primary opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Get together have been imprisoned and a minimum of 104,000 have been sued on totally different prices, in keeping with BNP figures. No less than 27 BNP males even have been killed in political violence since October.
With a supermajority in parliament – the Awami League gained 222 of 300 seats, and lots of the greater than 60 independents who gained are former members of the ruling occasion who have been allegedly asked to contest to provide a veneer of a combat – opposition leaders anticipate the federal government to focus on them much more.
BNP chief Kayser Kamal mentioned the “illegitimate” authorities would intensify its crackdown on opponents to divert consideration from the “sham” election.
Riaz agreed. “Bangladesh is changing into a de facto one-party state,” he mentioned. The federal government, he mentioned, would “undertake extra repressive measures, attempt to decimate any type of opposition by way of authorized and extra-legal measures”.