Caption: Mass protests have brought an end to Sheikh Hasina’s long rule.Article information
- Author, Editorial
- Roll, BBC News World*
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August 5, 2024
Sheikh Hasina’s time at the helm of the Bangladesh government has come to an end.
The prime minister, in power since January 2009, resigned at midday on Monday (local time) and fled to neighbouring India in a military helicopter, the BBC’s Bengali service reported.
The resignation of the president comes as a result of the popular uprising that has resulted from the wave of protests that broke out last July and which were led by young students, who demanded the repeal of a law that established quotas for assigning jobs in the Public Administration.
The protests have been harshly repressed by police authorities and have so far left at least 300 dead, of which 90 were recorded on Sunday alone, according to the AFP news agency.
Even after Hasina’s departure, scenes of vandalism and theft were reported across the country. Moments after the helicopter carrying the former prime minister was seen leaving, a mob of people entered the official residence to vandalize it, according to witnesses at the scene.
Protesters also entered the Bangabandhu museum in the capital, Dakam, and set it on fire.
Image caption: Anti-government protesters set fire to the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum in Dhaka. Image caption: Since last July Bangladesh has been the scene of mass demonstrations against a law on civil service jobs, many of which have been harshly repressed.
With politics in the veins
Born into a Muslim family in East Bengal in 1947, Sheikh Hasina had politics in her blood.
His father was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who is regarded as the “Father of the Nation” as he led Pakistan to independence in 1971 and became the new state’s first president.
By then, the now ex-president had already gained a reputation as a student leader at the University of Dhaka.
In 1975, her father was killed along with most of her family members during a military coup. Only she and her younger sister survived, as they were abroad at the time.
After living in exile in India, Shekih Hasina returned to Bangladesh in 1981 and became the leader of her father’s political party, the Awami League.
The leader joined other political leaders and led pro-democracy street protests during military rule, becoming an icon of democracy domestically.
Caption: The wave of protests has been led by students and young people.
In 1996, she was elected prime minister for the first time and gained a reputation as a statesman by signing a water-sharing agreement with neighbouring India and a peace deal with tribal insurgents in the country’s southeast.
However, her closeness to the Delhi government served as a basis for her rivals to attack her and in 2001 she lost the general election to a former ally now turned nemesis, Begum Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
However, in 2009 he regained power thanks to the ballot box.
Under his leadership, Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country that was once one of the poorest in the world, has achieved astonishing economic success and is now one of the fastest-growing economies in the region, outpacing even its giant neighbor India.
Per capita income in the country of 170 million people has tripled in the past decade and the World Bank estimates that more than 25 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the past 20 years.
Much of this boom has been driven by the garment industry, which accounts for the majority of Bangladesh’s total exports.
However, the former president has also been accused of poor administrative management and of taking advantage of her position to cling to power, as well as of political intolerance, as she has called her rivals “enemies” and even “terrorists.”
Caption: Around 300 people have died in protests that have rocked Bangladesh and brought down its government.
Against the symbols of power
As soon as the news of Sheikh Hasina’s flight became known, celebrations broke out among the thousands of protesters who had been on the streets of Dhaka since the early hours of Monday, preparing for another day of protests.
However, some went further and attacked the Ganabhaban Palace, the official residence and office of the country’s prime ministers.
Videos circulated on social media showed people running around the government headquarters chanting slogans, while others were seen carrying away objects, including some of the furniture and even kitchen utensils.
Not even the former president’s father has escaped the protesters’ wrath.
The BBC reported that a statue honouring the late leader in the capital was torn down by a group of people.
Caption: Hundreds of people managed to storm the official residence of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
The causes of the crisis
The protests, which have been going on since early July, began with peaceful demands by university students to abolish a law that set quotas for civil service jobs.
The instrument reserved one third of the seats for relatives of veterans of the war of independence in 1971.
Protesters argued that the system was discriminatory and needed reform.
Around 18 million young Bangladeshis are looking for work.
College graduates face higher unemployment rates than their less-educated peers, and so they opposed limits on public employment.
And although the students’ demands were largely met, the repression of the protests transformed them into a broader anti-government movement.
“It was no longer just students, people from all walks of life have joined the movement,” Dr Samina Luthfa, associate professor of sociology at Dhaka University, told the BBC.
Caption: Thousands of people in Dhaka and other cities in the Asian country came out to celebrate the resignation of the Prime Minister.
About the future
In a televised address to the nation, army commander General Waker-uz-Zaman announced the formation of an “interim government.”
The military official said he would meet with the country’s president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, in order to find the person who would take over the reins of the executive before the end of the day.
The names of any possible successors to Sheikh Hasina, who ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist for more than two decades, remain unknown.
Regarding the former president’s future, her son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, assured the BBC that she will retire from politics for good.
“She is very disappointed that after all her hard work, a minority is rising up against her,” she told Newshour.
Joy, who until today was one of her advisors, defended her mother’s legacy.
“He turned Bangladesh upside down. When he took power, the country was considered a failed state. It was a poor country and until today it was considered one of the rising tigers of Asia,” he added.
Joy rejected accusations that the government had engaged in abuses against protesters.
“There have been policemen beaten to death, 13 just yesterday. So what do you expect the police to do when mobs beat them to death?” he asked.
However, the majority of the hundreds of people killed in the protests are demonstrators.
*With information from Anbarasan Ethirajan, Anbarasan Ethirajan and Tessa Wong
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