The BNP government has now inherited the institutional resistance it generated and will need to find a way to manouvre around it. Bangladesh will find it extremely hard to finance its development ambitions unless it significantly improves its tax collection systems and addresses the political economy of doing so.
Bangladesh’s government faces a delicate balancing act. Every move in the international arena will be closely scrutinized for signs that the government is “tilting” towards one geopolitical axis or another.
That the stability and sustainability of Bangladesh’s renewed tryst with democracy will depend on how maturely Tarique Rahman deals with the thorny issue of Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League.
To return to democracy, we endured another undemocratic government after removing one. During this time, there were many human rights violations, many provocations. The people of Bangladesh gritted their teeth and waited for stability.
Tarique Rahman can do what Sheikh Hasina would not: trust the Parliament he leads. Let it examine the Yunus era, line by line. Keep what works. Amend what can be saved. In that sequence, through that process, a course will emerge.
Is tinkering with the formal rules of the game the triumph of hope over experience (this time politics will be different)? Or a more technocratic faith in the power of institutional architecture to push back against the potent political imperatives of rents and control (we can design our way to democracy)? Either way, fixing the rules seems a misplaced focus when history has shown that the amassing of political power rapidly renders such niceties ornamental.
