Ehteshamul Haque is a lawyer who focuses on technology transactions. He teaches corporate law at American University.
A two-thirds parliamentary majority means nothing if the streets of Dhaka turn against you, as Sheikh Hasina learned. If Tarique governs with the same composure and restraint he has shown since his return, there is reason for hope. If he does not, the verdict of the streets will be swift.
We should treat the promise of this election with the respect it deserves. The students who gave their lives, the activists who risked everything, the ordinary citizens who stood up against tyranny, did not do so for narrow partisan advantage. They did so for Bangladesh.
After liberation in 1971, the decisions made in those first years shaped the country for decades. The people who rise to state power or prominence in the next few years will define Bangladesh's trajectory for a generation.
She now walks the pathways of the afterlife, while we who remain must honor her legacy by continuing the struggle she led: the struggle for democracy, for justice, and for the betterment of the people of Bangladesh.
Tarique returns to Bangladesh as the indispensable man of Bangladeshi politics, the fulcrum of its democratic transition, the lynchpin of its liberal politics, and the prime minister in waiting.
By binding the concept of reform so tightly to the consensus commission's existence, and suggesting that the commission's end would spell the end of reform itself, we have propagated a dangerous fiction: that meaningful reform requires suspending normal democratic politics and governing through unelected technocrats.
When the trial process itself becomes a form of punishment it undermines the very foundation of a just legal system
The United States and Bangladesh were both born of a war of independence that pitted ordinary men and women against the might of a formidable army. This spirit was renewed in Bangladesh one year ago and shared responsibility will always be the backbone of true strength.
Given the determination of the US and Israel to bring down the Iranian government, what cards does Iran have left to play? Democratic, domestic reform is almost certainly the one durable solution.