As Bangladesh prepares for an election on Sunday, Minarul Islam, 37, is already resigned to the outcome.
“If there was competition then I’d have a choice,” he said on a busy street in Dhaka, the capital. “But there isn’t, so I have to vote for the Awami League”, the ruling party of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is seeking a historic fifth term in power.
The prime minister has embarked on a crackdown against her political rivals ahead of the polls, which critics say has left the South Asian democracy on the brink of sliding into de facto one-party rule.
The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party said police had arrested as many as 20,000 members and supporters in recent months. It is boycotting the January 7 vote, which it argues the Awami League is manipulating to prevent any serious challenge.
“This is the most consequential election Bangladesh is going to have . . . despite the fact that there isn’t an opposition,” said Ali Riaz, a politics professor at Illinois State University. Bangladesh risks “turning into a country somewhat akin to Cambodia,” he added. “There will be no opposition left. Those who can be there will toe the official line.”
The pre-poll repression in Bangladesh, which plays a crucial role in global supply chains as the world’s second-largest garments exporter, has alarmed observers.
Sheikh Hasina has enjoyed strong relations with powers including China, India and Russia, as well as the US, a major clothing buyer. But Washington has in recent months introduced visa curbs in an attempt to sway officials to maintain the polls’ fairness.
Observers call this pressure part of Washington’s broader strategy to stave off creeping authoritarianism in the region and counter the influence of Beijing, in whose Belt and Road infrastructure project Sheikh Hasina’s government has been an important participant.
Around Dhaka, portraits of Sheikh Hasina and other Awami League candidates peer down from ubiquitous black-and-white campaign posters. Scattered among them are the images of little-known rivals who have appeared in the BNP’s place.
Analysts said, however, that many of these candidates appeared to be running with the ruling party’s tacit approval, in what they called a strategy of allowing limited opposition.
“By its very definition, an election means an act of choice,” said Badiul Alam Majumdar, a civil society activist. “There must be an even playing field for the alternatives.” But in Bangladesh, “the outcome is pre-determined”. “This doesn’t meet the criteria of an election,” he said.
Bangladesh has transformed from one of the world’s poorest countries into an important export hub thanks to rapid growth in the garments industry, with gross domestic product a head surpassing that of neighbouring India. Clothing exports grew to a record $47bn in 2023.
But Sheikh Hasina, who was prime minister between 1996 and 2001 before returning to power in 2009, has at the same time embarked on an escalating campaign against her rivals, they said.
Her previous re-elections in 2014 and 2018 were dogged by opposition boycotts and accusations of ballot stuffing, charges officials have denied.
This time, anti-incumbency sentiment has intensified in the country of 170mn as the economy grinds through a painful crunch, observers said. Since last year, Bangladesh has struggled with high inflation, fuel shortages and dwindling foreign reserves, forcing Sheikh Hasina’s government to seek a multibillion-dollar IMF loan. Some economists have warned that the economic straits could spiral into a deeper balance of payments crisis of the kind suffered by Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Popular frustration came to a head with a wave of recent demonstrations by opposition political groups and garment workers unhappy with low wages. Several people were killed in ensuing clashes with police, who detained thousands of BNP allies on accusations ranging from arson to vandalism. Security forces have been deployed across the country ahead of the polls.
The BNP condemned the roundups as an attempt to dismantle the party. “They’re intimidating opposition parties using the court, police forces and state machinery,” said AKM Wahiduzzaman, a BNP leader, who said the party “won’t recognise their government as a valid government”.
Mohammad Arafat, an Awami League MP, disputed the BNP’s allegations. “There’s no crackdown on people participating in the electoral process,” he said. “It’s only on the people in the BNP . . . who are indulging in violence.”
Sheikh Hasina’s party “has cut down poverty”, he added. “People see a huge radical change all over the country . . . it’s actually helping the party to get more support.”
The domestic tension has spilled into international affairs as rival countries jockey for a foothold in Bangladesh.
The US, where many elite Bangladeshis have close ties, introduced visa restrictions against officials found to be “responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic election process”.
US pressure provoked a fiery response from Sheikh Hasina, who has accused Washington of seeking to spur regime change.
Russian foreign affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova last year accused the US of “gross interference” in Bangladesh’s affairs, while China’s President Xi Jinping said in August that Beijing would support Bangladesh “in opposing external interference”.
Avinash Paliwal, a political scientist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said even if the election were a “foregone conclusion”, Sheikh Hasina would face mounting challenges in the coming months.
“I don’t see the elections as the end game,” he said. “Even if she’s able to contain the political fallout . . . there’s the economic story that’s still beginning to unfold.”