Factum Perspective: South Asian countries at a crossroads
By P. K. Balachandran
2024 is turning out to be a year of elections in South Asia. The year dawned with parliamentary elections in Bangladesh and Bhutan. Later in the year, Pakistan, India, and Sri Lanka will vote to elect either a President or a parliament.
Elections bring out the cleavages in a society, and the forces or ideologies competing with each other. They indicate the preferences of the people and the direction voters want their country to take. In some cases, the role of foreign parties in domestic politics is revealed.
Bangladesh
Bangladesh was the first to test the will of the people this year when it had its parliamentary elections on January 7. Thanks to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP’s) boycott of the polls the ruling Awami League (AL) and its leader Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina strode into their fourth consecutive term with ease. This would be her fifth stint as PM.
But notwithstanding the triumph, Hasina’s democratic credentials were in tatters. Her commendable performance as an effective, if ruthless, leader that put Bangladesh on the high road to rapid economic growth, lost some of its sheen because of the undemocratic election.
The BNP had boycotted the election because Hasina would not resign and put the country in the hands of a neutral Caretaker to hold free and fair elections. Hasina’s argument was two-fold: that the Caretaker system was abolished in 2011 as it did not ensure neutrality, and that in other democracies, elections were held by existing governments.
Hasina was torn to bits by local and foreign liberals who resented her strong-arm methods. But none asked the BNP if it was democratic to repeatedly boycott elections, depriving the people of a choice. BNP’s boycotts have led to the AL’s enjoying a monopoly of power. Boycotts have spread political apathy in the population. The BNP has disintegrated because of the boycotts. Its behavior has contributed to making people apolitical.
With the population becoming apolitical, checks and balances that should operate disappear, resulting in dictatorial rule. As Bangladeshi political commentator Afsan Chowdhury told this writer, Bangladesh is basically an apolitical peasant society, the main concern of which is livelihood.
“Any leader who enables one to earn one’s livelihood is voted to power or allowed to rule. Democratic freedoms are not a consideration. These concerns are left to the NGOs and rights groups at home and abroad,” Chowdhury said.
Hasina has enabled livelihoods by steadily and rapidly improving the economy of Bangladesh. In a pro-poll TV appearance, Hasina said that in the last 15 years, growth was 7.25%; per capita income increased five times; budget size increased 12 times and the Annual Development Program (ADP) increased 13 times; GDP size increased 12 times; foreign exchange reserves increased 36 times; export earnings increased five times; annual remittance increased six times; foreign investment increased five times; wages of workers increased nine times’; foreign exchange reserves increased 36 times while export earnings increased five times.
She also mentioned that the poverty rate came down from 41.51% to 18.7%, and drinking water coverage increased from 55% to 98.8%. Sanitary latrines increased from 43.28% to 97.32%, while infant mortality decreased from 84 per thousand to 21 per thousand. Maternal mortality decreased from 360 per 100,000 to 156 per 100,000. The average human lifespan went up to 72.8 years.
Power generation capacity increased eight times in the last 15 years while the electricity consumption rate increased from 28% to 100%; the literacy rate increased to 76.8%, while enhancement of technical education increased 22 times. Grain production increased four times. In 2009, Bangladesh’s GDP was only USD 102 billion, but in 2023 it had increased to USD 450 billion.
Challenges Ahead
Since the BNP is organizationally weak, it will have to coopt its traditional ideological ally, the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami, whose reactionary ideology opposes social progress of Bangladeshis, especially women, and sharpens conflicts with neighbouring India.
The BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami alliance will continue to stoke anti-Hindu and anti-Indian feelings. This will get the tacit support of the United States, which wants rein in Hasina and checkmate India’s primacy in South Asia.
The US has imposed targeted sanctions on Bangladeshi officials for ruthless use of force to tackle the drug mafia and troublesome political opponents. The US wants Bangladesh to be part of a militarized Indo-Pacific alliance against China, but Dhaka desires an Indo-Pacific alliance with a strong economic content, an attribute it lacks now.
However, Hasina cannot fight the US tooth and nail because the US is the topmost recipient of Bangladeshi exports.
India and China have been Hasina’s consistent supporters though they are rivals. New Delhi is depending on Hasina to deny shelter to anti-Indian Islamic militants. Both China and India have secured infrastructural projects. China has supplied military equipment in addition.
Given her successful, if controversial, record in managing domestic contradictions and walking the tightrope in geopolitics, Sheikh Hasina is expected to tackle post-poll challenges with flair.
Bhutan
Bhutan held elections to its National Assembly on January 9. Former Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) won 30 out of the 47 seats. The polls were held amid an economic crisis.
Tobgay’s manifesto cited government statistics showing that one in every eight people was “struggling to meet their basic needs for food” and other necessities.
According to the World Bank, Bhutan’s economy grew at 1.7% over the past five years. Unemployment is a chronic problem, leading to an exodus of young people undermining the country’s economic potential.
As a country landlocked between India and China, Bhutan has no direct access to the world market. It feels choked by India. Peeved by this, it is trying to cultivate China giving it territorial concessions. In the process, it has created insecurity in New Delhi. Bhutan is trying to make up for its economic dependence on India by exercising political and diplomatic independence, to India’s chagrin.
Pakistan
Pakistan is to hold its National Assembly and Provincial elections on February 8. The past year had been turbulent. Pakistan witnessed multiple uncertainties in the political, economic, and legal realms.
The questions facing Pakistan in 2024 are: Will Pakistan see political stability? Which party will come to power?
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) is now at the receiving end from the Army, the most powerful institution in the country. Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N, or PML(N), was in the same precarious position before the 2018 election.
In 2018, the PTI was installed in power by the military, also known as the Deep State or the Establishment. The Deep State does political engineering at the Centre and in all provinces. That party or leader the Deep State backs, gets elected. The army also gets rid of governments which it dislikes, says Dr D. Suba Chandran, Dean of the School of Conflict and Security Studies at the National Institute of Advance Studies.
This time round, the military is backing Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N, or PML(N). The military through its intelligence wing creates and sustains political parties or proxies to create conditions for its client’s victory.
In 2018, the Deep State created Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) in Punjab, split Muttahdia Qaumi Movement in Sindh, and floated the Balochistan Awami Party in Balochistan.
Political engineering is taking place this year too, Suba Chandran says. To help Nawaz Sharif’s PML (N), the Deep State levelled serious charges against PTI’s Imran Khan to keep him in jail and disqualify him. Imran is waging a legal battle to restore even his party’s symbol, the cricket bat.
Most PTI leaders have left Imran. Some have joined a new party, the Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party (IPP), led by Jahangir Khan Tareen. It is alleged that the Deep State is trying to get the IPP make a deal with the PML(N) in Punjab.
Be that as it may, the PTI and its leader Imran Khan are hugely popular in Punjab and indeed all over Pakistan. It will be interesting to see if popularity will triumph over the Establishment’s power.
As far as foreign relations are concerned, a Nawaz Sharif government will try to be friendly with India at least to resume bilateral trade and help bring about a reduction in the prices of essential commodities. But egged on by the army, Sharif will continue to insist that India must restore autonomy to Kashmir that had been taken away in 2019 by abrogating Art 370 of the India constitution. India will not budge and tension with it will continue.
Nawaz will mend fences with the US, which were damaged by Imran Khan. He had charged that the US was plotting to overthrow him. With the US anticipating a Sharif victory, the IMF has approved a USD 700 million loan for Pakistan under a USD 3 billion bailout. The total disbursements under the Standby Arrangement (SBA) now stands at USD 1.9 billion which will help shore up the failing Pakistani economy.
Pakistan will continue to have good relations China which has invested heavily in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridors (CPEC).
India
As far as the May 2024 Indian parliamentary elections are concerned, the BJP is generally perceived as the winning horse. This is based on Modi’s enduring popularity, says Milan Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He quotes “Morning Consult” which says that 78% of Indians surveyed in late November approved of Modi’s performance. The biannual “Mood of the Nation” poll from India Today has consistently shown, that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would capture a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament.
But there are issues that Modi will have to face. If the united opposition alliance, known by the acronym INDIA, solves its seat adjustment problems, it can defeat the BJP-NDA. But INDIA is a diverse and mutually antagonistic group. A single charismatic leader can forge unity, but there is no single charismatic leader yet. There is none to match Modi’s appeal.
The second flaw in INDIA is that it does not have a powerful political and economic narrative to take on Modi’s Hindu nationalistic and forward-looking economic narrative that appeals to the aspirational Indians who want to progress fast.
While India is stressing India’s inequalities and de-legitimizing Modi’s claims about economic progress, Modi is highlighting India’s economic and technological achievements to give the common man a sense of achievement. Modi reflects the mood of the times, while Rahul Gandhi attempts to point to the darker side.
Modi is brazenly exploiting the Hindu-Muslim divide to consolidate Hindu votes. But in an about turn in the last few days, Modi had made moves to win over the Muslims. He secured from Saudi Arabia a quota of 150,000 for Indian Muslim pilgrims going to Mecca. He also paid homage to a Muslim shrine in Ajmer. His government is to set up a Sufi (Islamic) religious pilgrimage circuit like the Buddhist circuit.
India is trying to fight communal divisiveness, but ineffectively.
Unless some political or economic catastrophe happens, between now and May, Modi should romp home to a third consecutive term.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is expected to have Presidential elections in September and parliamentary polls thereafter. But as yet, there is no clarity about the political situation. No one leader or party appears to be a frontrunner.
Those in the field are the United National Party (UNP) leader and Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe; the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) leader Sajith Premadasa; the National People’s Power (NPP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) could either put up apolitical tycoon Dhammika Perera or support Wickremesinghe.
An opinion survey conducted earlier had indicated that Dissanayake of the NPP would be the front runner, riding the wave of public anger against the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities. The latest reports suggest that many youths want to give a chance to the NPP since it has not been in office yet.
The SLPP, the party of the discredited Rajapaksa brothers, is undecided though it supports President Wickremesinghe in parliament to keep the country’s political system from collapsing. The parties of the Sri Lankan Tamils are undecided about who they should support. The Indian origin Tamils have a history of backing the winning horse.
For the opponents of Wickremesinghe, the main issue is the rising prices of essentials and dwindling of money in the pockets of middle class and poor consumers. New taxes especially the higher VAT rates have hit the people hard.
In its defense, the government says that rates had to be hiked to meet the IMF’s conditions on tax reforms and tax collection.
According to the Central Bank, the economy is improving though only incrementally. Inflation, which accelerated to unprecedented levels in 2022, was brought down to single digit levels within a year.
Foreign exchange inflows have increased improving the Balance of Payments position. Gross official Reserves (GOR), which declined to a meagre level in April 2022, improved to US$ 4.4 billion by the end of 2023, partly due to receipt of two tranches under the IMF-Extended Fund Facility. Further financing is expected from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
There has been a sharp increase in earnings from tourism and in other inflows. Compressed imports have also helped. There has been a notable increase in tax revenue. The prices of public goods have been made cost effective, and the financial performance of State-Owned Business Enterprises has improved.
To bring down the debt burden, the Government successfully completed the Domestic Debt Optimization (DDO). An Agreement in Principle (AIP) was reached with the Official Creditors Committee (OCC) and with the EXIM Bank of China for debt restructuring, while good faith negotiations continued with other creditors to reach an AIP at the earliest.
Monetary policy was loosened gradually since June 2023 as underlying inflationary pressures subsided. The gradual normalization of market lending interest rates improved investor and business sentiment.
However, sources in the UNP said that to further ease the burden on the common man, electricity tariff will be brought down in February and the VAT rate brought down from 18% to the original rate of 15%. But corporate taxes are unlikely to be increased as business sentiment is not buoyant enough yet.
However, no one will be able to predict on what perceptions people will vote in the forthcoming elections in the island. The chances are even.
P. K. Balachandran is a freelance journalist based in Colombo writing on South Asian affairs for various news websites and dailies for a number of years. He has reported from Colombo and Chennai for Hindustan Times, New Indian Express and Economist. He has a weekly column in Daily Mirror and Ceylon Today in Sri Lanka.
Factum is an Asia Pacific-focused think tank on International Relations, Tech Cooperation, and Strategic Communications accessible via www.factum.lk.
The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the organization’s.
