The Bangladesh Awami League (AL) (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ আওয়ামী লীগ; translated from Urdu Bangladesh People's League), commonly known as the Awami League, is the mainstream center-left, secular political party in Bangladesh. It is also currently the governing party after winning the 2008 Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh.
The Awami League was founded in Dhaka, the erstwhile capital of the Pakistani province of East Bengal, in 1949 by Bengali nationalists Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani and Shamsul Huq. The Awami League was established as the Bengali alternative to the domination of the Muslim League in Pakistan. The party quickly gained massive popular support in East Bengal, later named East Pakistan, and eventually led the forces of Bengali nationalism in the struggle against West Pakistan's military and political establishment. The party under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, would lead the struggle for independence, first through massive populist and civil disobedience movements, such as the Six Point Movement and 1971 Non-Cooperation Movement, and then during the Bangladesh Liberation War. After the emergence of independent Bangladesh, the Awami League would win the first general elections in 1973 but was overthrown in 1975 after the dramatic assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.The party was forced by subsequent military regimes into political wilderness and many of its senior leaders and actvists were executed and jailed. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, the Awami League emerged as one of the principal players of Bangladeshi politics.
Amongst the leaders of the Awami League, five have become the President of Bangladesh, four have become the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and one became the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Since the independence of Bangladesh, the party has been under the control of the family of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. His daughter and also the incumbent Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, has been heading the party since 1981.
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[edit] Ideology
The Bangladesh Awami League (AL) has laid down four key principles as the basis of its ideology and approach to politics, which is to establish "Sonar Bangla" (Golden Bengal), a term that refers to Bangladesh as a modern developed nation. The four key principles are in line with the original constitution of Bangladesh. Those four principles are Bengali nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism.
[edit] Pre-Bangladesh history
[edit] 1949 to 1966
The "All Pakistan Awami Muslim League" was formed as a breakaway faction of the "All Pakistan Muslim League" in 1949, within two years of the formation of Pakistan through the partition of India. The word "Muslim" was dropped in 1955. Two parties of the same name were created in Pakistan, one in the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on June 23, 1949 by Maulana Abdul Hameed Khan Bhashani. Its first general secretary was Shamsul Hoq and Treasurer was Nurul Islam Chowdhury . Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Khondokar Mostaq Ahmed and A.K. Rafiqul Hussain were its first three joint secretaries[1] [2][3] in East Pakistan. The other in the North-West Frontier Province of the then West Pakistan was created by Peer Manki Shareef soon after. In February 1950, the two were merged, creating the "All Pakistan Awami Muslim League", with Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy as its leader. As the years went by the Awami League became associated with the oppressed Bangla speaking majority of East Pakistan. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was elected party president in 1966, and the AL gained much popularity through the famous six point movement.
[edit] 1966 to 1971
The 6-point demands, proposed by Mujib, were widely accepted by the East Pakistani populace, as they proposed greater autonomy for the provinces of Pakistan. After the so-called Agartala Conspiracy Case, and subsequent end of the Ayub Khan regime in Pakistan, the Awami League and its leader Sheikh Mujib reached the peak of their popularity among the East Pakistani Bengali population. In the elections of 1970, the Awami League won 167 of 169 East Pakistan seats in the National Assembly but none of West Pakistan's 138 seats. It also won 288 of the 300 provincial assembly seats in East Pakistan. [4] [5]. This win gave the Awami League a healthy majority in the 313-seat National Assembly and placed it in a position to establish a national government without a coalition partner. This was not acceptable to the political leaders of West Pakistan and led directly to the events of the Bangladesh Liberation War. The AL leaders, taking refuge in India, successfully led the war against the Pakistani Army throughout 1971.
[edit] Post independence history
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[edit] 1972 to 1975
After independence on 16 December 1971, the party formed the national government of Bangladesh. In 1972, under Sheikh Mujib, the party name was changed to "Awami League". The party was plagued with by internal corruption and failed to repair the nation's wounds from the independence war. As Bangladesh continued exporting jute to Egypt, violating US economic sanctions, the Nixon government barred grain imports that Bangladesh had already paid for from reaching the country[citation needed]. As a result, the famine of 1974 was inevitable. 28,000 people died, and support for Mujib declined dramatically.
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In January 1975, Mujib declared a state of emergency and later assumed the presidency, after the Awami League dominated parliament decided to switch from parliamentary to a presidential form of government. Sheikh Mujib renamed the League the "Bangladesh Farmers and Workers Awami League (Bangladesh Krishok Sramik Awami League, BAKSAL), and banned all other parties. BAKSAL became the strong arm of what had turned into a dictatorship, with Sheikh Mujib becoming the lifetime president. Many opposition political workers, mostly revolutionary communist elements, were jailed after three Members of Parliament were killed by the communist insurgency. The crackdown on opposition was aided by the elite paramilitary force Rakkhi Bahini.
[edit] 1975 to 1996
These negative developments led to a widespread dissatisfaction among the people and even inside the Army. On 15 August 1975 some junior members of the armed forces in Dhaka, led by Major Faruk Rahman and Major Rashid, assassinated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and all his family members. Within months, on November 3, 1975, four more of its top leaders, Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, Captain Muhammad Mansur Ali and A. H. M. Qamaruzzaman were killed inside the Dhaka Central Jail. Only Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana, two daughters of Mujib, survived the massacre as they were in West Germany as a part of a cultural exchange program. They later claimed political asylum in the United Kingdom. Sheikh Rehana, the younger sister, chose to remain in the UK permanently, while Sheikh Hasina moved to India and lived in self imposed exile. Her stays abroad helped her gain important political friends in the West and in India that proved to be a valuable asset for the party in the future.
After 1975, the party remained split into several rival factions, and fared poorly in the 1979 parliamentary elections held under a military government. In 1981 Sheikh Hasina returned after the largest party faction, the "Bangladesh Awami League", elected her its president, and she proceeded to take over the party leadership and unite the factions. As she was under age at the time she could not take part in the 1981 presidential elections that followed the assassination of then President Ziaur Rahman. Throughout the following nine years of military rule by General Ershad the AL participated in some polls but boycotted most, nearly all of them allegedly rigged.
The Awami League emerged as the largest opposition party in parliament in the elections in 1991, following the uprising against Ershad. It made major electoral gains in 1994 as its candidates won mayoral elections in the two largest cities of the country: the capital Dhaka and the commercial capital Chittagong. Demanding electoral reforms the party resigned from the parliament in 1995, boycotted the February 1996 parliamentary polls, and subsequently won 146 out of 300 seats in June 1996 parliamentary polls. Supported by a few smaller parties, the Awami League formed a "Government of National Unity," and elected a non-partisan head of state, retired Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed.
[edit] 1996 to 2001
AL's second term in office had mixed achievements. Apart from sustaining economic stability during the Asian economic crisis, the government successfully settled Bangladesh's long standing dispute with India over sharing the water of the river Ganga (also known as Padma) in late 1996, and signed a peace treaty with tribal rebels in 1997. In 1998, Bangladesh faced one of the worst floods ever, and the government handled the crisis satisfactorily. It also had significant achievements in containing inflation, and peacefully neutralising a long-running leftist insurgency in south-western districts dating back to the first AL government's time. However, rampant corruption allegations against party office bearers and ministers as well as a deteriorating law and order situation troubled the government. Its pro poor policies achieved wide microeconomic development but that left the country's wealthy business class dissatisfied. The AL's last months in office were marred by sporadic bombing by alleged Islamist militants. Hasina herself escaped several attempts on her life, in one of which two anti-tank mines were planted under her helipad in Gopalganj district. In July 2001, the second AL government stepped down, becoming the first elected government in Bangladesh to serve a full term in office.
The party won only 62 out of 300 parliamentary seats in the elections held in October 2001, despite bagging 40% of the votes, up from 36% in 1996 and 33% in 1991. The BNP and its allies won a two thirds majority in parliament with 46% of the votes cast, with BNP alone winning 41% up from 33% in 1996 and 30% in 1991..
[edit] 2001 to 2008
In its second term in opposition since 1991, the party suffered the assassination of several key members. Popular young leader Ahsanullah Master, a Member of Parliament from Gazipur, was killed in 2004. This was followed by a grenade attack on Hasina during a public meeting on August 21, 2004, resulting in the death of 22 party supporters, including party women's secretary Ivy Rahman, though Hasina lived. Finally, the party's electoral secretary, ex finance minister, and veteran diplomat Shah M S Kibria, a Member of Parliament from Habiganj, was killed in a grenade attack in Sylhet later that year.
In June 2005, the Awami League won an important victory when the AL nominated incumbent mayor A.B.M. Mohiuddin Chowdhury won the important mayoral election in Chittagong, by a huge margin, against BNP nominee State Minister of Aviation Mir Mohammad Nasiruddin. This election was seen as a showdown between the Awami League and the BNP. However, the killing of party leaders continued. In December 2005, the AL supported Mayor of Sylhet narrowly escaped the third attempt on his life as a grenade thrown at him failed to explode[6] .
In September 2006, several of the party's top leaders, including Saber Hossain Choudhury MP and Asaduzzaman Nur MP, were hospitalized after being critically injured by police beatings while they demonstrated in support of electoral-law reforms. Starting in late October 2006, the Awami League led alliance carried out a series of nationwide demonstrations and blockades centering around the selection of the leader of the interim caretaker administration to oversee the 2007 elections. Although an election was scheduled to take place on January 22, 2007 that the Awami League decided to boycott, the country's military intervened on January 11, 2007 and installed an interim government composed of retired bureaucrats and military officers.
Throughout 2007 and 2008, the military backed government tried to root out corruption and get rid of the two dynastic leaders of the AL and BNP. While these efforts largely failed, they succeeded in producing a credible voter list that was used in the December 29, 2008 national election.
[edit] National election 2008
The Awami league participated in the national election on December 29, 2008 as part of a larger electoral alliance that also included the Jatiya Party led by former military ruler General Ershad as well as some leftist parties. According to the Official Results of the 2008 National Elections posted by the Election Commission[7], Bangladesh Awami League has won 230 out of 299 constituencies, and together with its allies, have a total of 262 seats.[8]. The Awami League and its allies received 57% of the total votes cast. The AL alone got 48%, compared to 36% of the other major alliance led by the BNP which by itself got 33% of the votes. Ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as party head, is the Prime Minister-Elect. Her term of office is likely to begin on January 10, 2009. [9] She is expected to head a 30-35 member government that will include cabinet members from the Awami League's electoral allies.
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