He argued that this persistent political friction, combined with the systematic hyper-politicization of essential state bodies like the police and judiciary, leaves the country continuously vulnerable to institutional collapse.
Staff Reporter : Editor and publisher of The Daily Star Mahfuz Anam on Sunday criticized Bangladesh’s historical political cycles, stating that the nation possesses an enviable capacity to overthrow autocratic regimes but repeatedly fails to build sustainable democratic foundations.
Speaking at an international conference in the capital, Anam highlighted a recurring tragedy where the unified fronts that dismantle dictatorships quickly dissolve into post-revolution disunity. He argued that this persistent political friction, combined with the systematic hyper-politicization of essential state bodies like the police and judiciary, leaves the country continuously vulnerable to institutional collapse.
“When dismantling a dictatorship, the nation unites, but once the dictatorship is dismantled, the nation divides. The very groups who worked together to dismantle the dictatorship then become each other’s enemies,” said Anam.
“We really don’t know how to bring people together, with all their energy, all their innovation, all their resilience, and turn that resource into national strength,” the editor said. He said that the very birth of Bangladesh was a result of an uprising against a very brutal military dictatorship.
“But then we failed to develop a democracy in Bangladesh, and then there was a military uprising. Ershad was the last one to fall, and we returned to democracy in 1991, and we really hoped that this would be the rebirth of democracy in Bangladesh,” said Anam.
Since then, there have been some fair elections under caretaker governments, but those were not lasting. “Instead of institutionalising fair elections, we got more and more into conflicts, rivalries and then destruction,” he said.
He said Bangladesh had failed to institutionalise democratic structures. “The reason is that we have over-politicised every institution imaginable. This over-politicisation has corroded the effectiveness of almost all our institutions,” he said.
He said almost every profession in Bangladesh was politically divided along party lines. This, he said, extended from frontline professions such as doctors, who are expected to serve everyone, to journalism, where nonpartisanship is essential to credibility. “In a profession where credibility is your lifeblood, how can you openly side with a political party and still expect that you will enjoy credibility?” questioned Anam.
“Police are always used as a partisan extension of one’s party muscle. Intelligence agencies are used for political purposes. Institutions like the Anti-Corruption Commission, which are supposed to be constitutional bodies and run independently, are all politicised,” he added. He said that a party gets elected through a democratic process which is an expression of public will, but that does not translate into loyalty towards the public.
“Obviously, globally, every political party — the Labour Party in England, the Democrats in the US — will have some partisanship [within the government], but turning your whole governance system into an extension of your own party is where the collapse begins. And one of the first results of this is corruption and cronyism,” the editor said.
