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THE recently deposed Awami League government left a sordid history. Its decade-and-a-half-long reign (2009–August 2024) witnessed rampant corruption, violent and ruthless suppression, and repression of opponents. During this time, a mutiny among the paramilitary force, BDR, took place. The cause and the sources of the mutiny that resulted in the murder of 57 army officers remain a mystery to this day. There are suggestions that the mutiny was orchestrated from within and outside and was initiated to weaken the Bangladesh army.

There is now evidence that suggests that the Awami League’s deposed leader Sheikh Hasina bartered the country’s sovereignty to India to stay in power, which favoured India at the cost of Bangladesh. Indeed, the deposed government’s ties, more like subservience, to India have been so strong and intimate that in the face of the mass uprising, the leadership of the deposed ruling party, including its leader, Sheikh Hasina, fled to India, where they are safely ensconced to this day.

Far from being repentant of the wrongs they had committed during their decade-and-a-half-long reign and, lately, for the brute force with which she and her loyal forces tried to suppress the July-August 2024 mass uprising that killed and injured thousands, mostly young, Sheikh Hasina and her loyalists have branded the uprising a conspiracy and, much worse, are said to be planning revenge.

This is the backdrop against which the post-Hasina interim government led by Muhammad Yunus has indicated that in the forthcoming elections all registered political parties, including the Awami League, will be allowed to participate. This proposed idea did not go down well with most people.

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Ban or not to ban

INDEED, given the Awami League’s horrific track record in human rights abuse and criminalities, many people are demanding that the Awami League should not only be disallowed from participation in the forthcoming election, but the party itself should be banned, just as the Nazis and fascists were banned, and for the same reason, the Bangladesh Awami League should be banned.

Others have been a bit conciliatory, who argue that ‘We want justice first; none of those killers and autocrats have been sentenced yet. Most of them were given safe exit out of the country. We want justice first. If proper justice can be achieved, then we have no problem with the Awami League coming back in a reformed way.’

Yet others have argued that the Awami League and good people are mutually exclusive, meaning that it is the Awami Leaguers that have made Awami League a wicked organisation, and thus banning Awami League is the only way to bar bad people from reentering politics in Bangladesh.

Some, however, believe that there is no need to officially ban Awami League, for given its despicable track record, it would die its own death. ‘Remember the Muslim League, which had spearheaded the vigorous movement for a separate homeland for the Muslims…. Didn’t the party enjoy the overwhelming support of the people before and after independence in 1947? But because of the follies of its leaders (nothing compared to what the Awami League did), their popularity dwindled in quick time and the party almost died, rejected by the people.… Outright banning [of Awami League] will not do any good, except for creating more tension,’ and therefore, ‘let it die a natural death!’

So, what is the verdict — should the Awami League be banned or be given another opportunity to repent and apologise for their bad deeds and assist the interim government to bring to justice its leaders who face criminal charges, including charges of mass murder, and redeem itself?

Some, however, doubt that the Awami League can be remedied and trusted and suggest that ‘old habits die hard’, implying that the Awami League’s past behaviour has repeated in the present and so would be in the future. Let us appraise the Awami League generically.

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Appraising Awami League

BASED on its pre-liberation and post-liberation politics, it is obvious that the Awami League is a party of contradictions — from champion of democracy, it degenerated, especially after it came to power, into a horrific persecutor autocracy. In summary, the Awami League reveals the following interesting characters:

— the Awami League is the most avid advocate of democracy, only when it is in opposition, but once in power, it uses its authority to stifle democracy and adopt autocracy (1975; 2009-2024).

— the Awami League uses democracy to come to power and then uses democracy to kill democracy, for example, the abolition of parliamentary democracy and transition to one-party BaKSAL rule (1975); and the abolition of the caretaker system, which paved the way to rigged elections with impunity and a march towards autocracy (2009–2024).

— the Awami League makes hatred its political capital and, when in government, uses political othering, repression, and patronage distribution as its tools of control and, more recently, bartered the country’s sovereignty to an external entity to entrench itself in the seat of the government (2009-2024).

— Another redeeming feature of the Awami League is that its supporters support the party and its leaders unquestionably, and such blind loyalty has allowed it to get away with murder, literally, so much so that the Awami League looks less a political party and more a cult where its supporters put the party ahead of the country and the leader ahead of both the party and the country into the position of a deity.

So, given this scenario, which only confirms the Awami League’s uninterrupted propensity to abuse, should the party be given the opportunity to reform itself and join the ensuing democratic process?

There are those who argue that the Awami League’s road to recovery lies in self-reflection, ideological recommitment, and rebuilding trust with the people, and yet others are less convinced and suggest that if past records are any guide, ‘reflection’ is not one of the Awami League’s strongest points.

So, where do we go from here?

If we probe deep, we see that the root of the problem is not the Awami League and, for that matter, not political parties as such nor the constitutions of political parties that are replete with good intentions but the people that run political parties. So, the remedy may lie not in banning a badly behaving party but in preventing bad people from entering political parties, and if so, how do we go about it?

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The remedy

A RECENT UN study has shown that you may have the world’s best system, but if you have crooks running them, systems will be crooked. Take, for example, the case of the US — same constitution and same party and yet under Abraham Lincoln, America looked and behaved one way, and under Trump? Less said is better.

So, are there models that help keep the crooks out of the systems, both political and government systems?

Indeed, there are. For example, South Korea’s integrity check system, called the Personnel Verification System (PVS), is a good model to consider.

The PVS undertakes integrity checks of politicians (the executives of political parties, including party leaders) and heads of government departments, including heads of the police and the army, after they get nominated and prior to their appointments to respective positions. These nominated individuals get formally appointed only after obtaining PVS clearance.

In South Korea, the introduction of PVS, which was introduced a couple of decades ago, has since successfully prevented people with questionable track records from entering systems, politics and government — only the competent and the honest are appointed to the high positions in South Korea these days. More importantly, the PVS ensures that even if someone passes the initial integrity checks and later deviates from ethical norms, they get sacked and are brought to justice (recently, the sitting president was indicted and sacked on charges of nepotism).

In the context of the above, it is suggested that instead of banning a political party, any party the interim government may consider adopting PVS-like provisions that ensure improved ethics in politics such as: (i) firstly, compels the political parties to democratically elect their leaders including office bearers and that these party elections are held under the supervision of the election commission; (ii) secondly, introduces integrity checks such as that of South Korea’s PVS to help keeping the corrupt and the crooks out of political parties; (iii) ensures that constitution of political parties are not in variance with the reformed constitution of the country and to facilitate implementation of (i) and (ii) above; (iv) de-registers all the current registered political parties including the Awami League and re-registers them under the proposed reformed codes of conduct of political parties.

It is expected that the reformed governance of political parties that would also include the integrity checks of office bearers such as that of South Korea’s PVS will significantly improve both the quality of the politicians as well as that of political parties and, by extension, governance of the country.

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M Adil Khan is an academic and former senior policy manager of the United Nations.