On Christmas Day this 12 months, Tarique Rahman – the inheritor obvious of the Bangladesh Nationalist Social gathering (BNP) and the person many consider may very well be the nation’s subsequent prime minister – returned house and stepped instantly into an influence vacuum that has been steadily widening for the reason that collapse of the Awami League authorities in August 2024.
After 17 years in exile, Rahman’s act of touching the soil was fastidiously staged for the cameras, however its penalties are structural moderately than symbolic. Bangladesh at present is a state with no regular pulse, and his return has introduced the nation’s temporary post-revolutionary interlude to an finish.
5 days later, on December 30, the political second hardened into historic finality. Khaleda Zia – the previous prime minister and spouse of BNP founder and former Bangladesh President Ziaur Rahman – died after a protracted sickness, severing the final residing hyperlink to the get together’s unique management era.
Rahman is now not Khaleda Zia’s successor. He’s now the chief of the BNP because it heads in the direction of elections on February 12.
The nation Rahman left in 2008 was fractured; the one he inhabits now’s structurally compromised. The hurried flight of Sheikh Hasina to India after the rebellion towards her ended a decade and a half of autocratic rule however left behind a hollowed-out forms and a social contract in shreds.
Whereas Muhammad Yunus’s interim administration makes an attempt to handle the transition, road energy has already begun to bypass formal authority. On this volatility, Rahman’s presence acts as a high-voltage conductor for the BNP, offering a focus for an opposition that was, till lately, systematically suppressed.
For tens of millions who seen the final decade of elections below Hasina’s authoritarian grip as foregone conclusions, Rahman represents the return of alternative.
But Rahman isn’t any rebel outsider; he’s the final word product of the system he seeks to steer. Because the son of two former leaders of the nation, he carries the load of a dynastic legacy carefully related to the patronage networks which have lengthy hobbled Bangladeshi governance. His earlier proximity to energy was marked by allegations of casual authority and corruption – prices that proceed to function political ammunition for his detractors. To supporters, he’s a sufferer of judicial overreach; to critics, he’s proof of why Bangladesh’s democratic experiments so typically collapse below the load of elite impunity.
This duality defines the stress of his return. Rahman is now trying a pivot, buying and selling the rhetoric of road agitation for the measured cadence of a statesman. His current speeches – emphasizing minority safety, nationwide unity, and the rule of legislation – recommend a frontrunner acutely conscious that the youth who helped dislodge Hasina won’t settle for a easy change within the identification of the ruling elite.
The BNP he now leads faces a Bangladesh that’s extra globally built-in and fewer affected person with opaque politics. If Rahman takes energy, strain to reform the judiciary and the Election Fee will probably be quick. With out institutional credibility, any mandate he secures could have a dangerously quick shelf life.
Economically, Rahman is prone to pursue pragmatic continuity. Bangladesh’s dependence on garment exports and international funding leaves little room for ideological experimentation. The true check will probably be inside self-discipline. The temptation to settle previous scores and reward loyalists via the identical rent-seeking channels utilized by earlier regimes will probably be immense. Historical past suggests that is the place Bangladeshi leaders fail – and the nation’s present financial fragility leaves no margin for such indulgence.
Probably the most delicate enviornment, nevertheless, will probably be international coverage – particularly, relations with India. For years, New Delhi discovered a predictable, if transactional, associate in Sheikh Hasina. The BNP, in contrast, has lengthy been seen by Indian safety circles with suspicion and strategic unease.
Rahman now seems to be signalling a reset, transferring away from nationalist antagonism in the direction of what he describes as “balanced sovereignty”. He understands that whereas Bangladesh should recalibrate its relationship with India to fulfill home sentiment, it can not afford hostility with its most consequential neighbour. For India, the problem is accepting {that a} steady, pluralistic Bangladesh – even below a well-recognized rival – is preferable to a perpetually unstable one.
In the end, Rahman’s return is a stress check not only for Bangladesh, however for the thought of democratic alternative in South Asia itself. This isn’t a easy dynastic succession; it’s a reckoning. After years of enforced stability and managed outcomes, the reintroduction of political uncertainty is, paradoxically, an indication of democratic life.
Whether or not Tarique Rahman makes use of this opening to rebuild establishments he as soon as bypassed – or reverts to the habits of the previous – will decide greater than his private legacy. It’s going to resolve whether or not Bangladesh can lastly break its cycle of exile and revenge, or whether or not it’s merely making ready for the subsequent collapse.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
