Bangladesh : The Plus Two formula

The events of the past year in Dhaka are increasingly beginning to fit into the formula of a tragedy scripted in Islamabad nearly a decade ago. It was one year ago, on 11 January 2007, that a military-backed interim government seized power in a gentrified coup in Dhaka – apparently endorsed by key embassies and the United Nations. In so doing, the new leadership scrapped elections scheduled for later that month, which many had thought were likely to be rigged in any case. The civilian façade of the government comprised of the good and great of Dhaka civil society, led by former World Banker Fakhruddin Ahmed. As such, there was a sense of heady exhilaration among Dhaka's middle and upper classes, who desperately wanted to believe that a country governed according to the vision of 'a few good men' was better off than being caught in the crude power struggle of two rival political parties amidst a violent political subculture of longstanding.

In his address to the country at that time, likewise echoing past formulations from Pakistan, Chief Advisor Fakhruddin invoked the infamous 'doctrine of necessity'. He went on to cite the pre-electoral political violence that had seen more than 30 people killed, and the culture of muscle power and money that had come to dominate the political arena, as the raison d'etre for his non-representative government. The interim government promised to carry out key administrative and electoral reforms; wage a war against corruption in politics, big business and the bureaucracy; and to hold free and fair elections, featuring "honest" candidates, by the end of 2008. Decency and accountability would thus to be restored to governance.