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In the general elections scheduled for next month, the ruling Awami League, led by Hasina, will fight to retain power against a new alliance led by Oxford-based international jurist Kamal Hossain, who drafted the constitution country – and that Hasina grew up calling him "kaka". ", or my uncle.
The 82-year-old lawyer said his decision to forge an alliance with the main opposition party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was crucial to restoring democracy in the country.
Hasina, daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, hero of Bangladesh independence, is the oldest ruler of his brief history. It began a second consecutive term in power in 2014, after a boycotted election by the BNP and rejected by international observers, with more than half of the seats to be filled.
"What has happened in the last five years is unprecedented," Hossain told Reuters in an interview. "We have never had an unelected government in five years."
Hasina and BNP leader Khaleda Zia share a long and fierce rivalry and have exercised power alternately for most of the past 28 years. But the BNP has been in disarray since Khaleda was jailed for corruption, which she denies earlier this year.
The BNP's participation in the December 30 elections was dubious until last month, when the party and three other parties announced the formation of a new alliance, the Jatiya Oikya Front or National Front for Peace. Unit, led by Hossain. group called Gano Forum, or People's Forum.
Hossain walks with a stick and says that he is not trying to become prime minister because he is too old.
But some members of the coalition, he said, privately liken it to Mahathir Mohamad, the Malaysian prime minister who took power 92 years earlier this year, after defeating a predecessor mired in accusations of corruption.
"His health may be better than mine," Hossain joked.
"This is not a rebel"
Hossain was born to a British medical doctor father, in present-day Kolkata, in eastern India. It was before division in India and Pakistan, from which Bangladesh was carved as a result of a war in 1971.
He was imprisoned alongside Hasina's father and later served him as the country's prime minister of the law.
He then held various posts at the United Nations after leaving the Awami League in the early 1990s to form the Rival People's Forum.
BNP insiders claim that his international reputation and his image as a defender of liberty were reasons that led him to appear before the alliance.
However, siding with the BNP makes him a goal for Hasina. The BNP has ties to the banned Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, which has opposed the independence of Pakistan and several of whose members have been sentenced to death for war crimes.
A few days after the announcement of the new coalition, Hasina declared that Hossain had "been badociated with badbadins".
"Yes, the BNP has done a lot of things that I never appreciate," said Hossain. "They have injected a degree of communalism into politics, which is very unfortunate."
But he said the coalition would be secular and would have nothing to do with groups like Jamaat-e-Islami.
Some wonder if he has the necessary characteristics of the uglier side of Bangladeshi politics.
"This is not a rebel leader, he is a clbadic constitutional lawyer," said Shahdeen Malik, Supreme Court lawyer and professional knowledge. "Intuitively, he would do things in the rules, and in our politics, this can be a disadvantage – that is for me his main weakness."
"STATE OF A PERSON"
Some political badysts predict a strong anti-presidential sentiment in elections.
In addition to detaining dozens of opposition members for fictitious indictments of the BNP, the Hasina government also attacks critics such as the prominent photographer Shahidul Alam, arrested for commenting on the remarks that he had been holding on social media. Hossain's daughter, Sara, is a well-known lawyer who helped secure Alam's bail last week.
Hasina introduced laws that, according to human rights groups, would give him the power to sue dissidents and gag the media.
Hossain calls them a "predefined effort" to create "not even a one-party state, but a one-person state".
"The real danger of having an authoritarian government like this exists, God forbid if it survives the next elections, many of us will not be able to stay in the country" said Hossain about his fears of criticism. will be targeted by the government.
The Awami League denied attempting to restrict freedom of expression or freedom of the press and characterized the prosecution of BNP members as lawful.
The previous elections were marred by outbreaks of violence, balloting and intimidation of voters, and Hossain said the alliance planned to have several "observers" in the polling booths and to search for international observers.
But even a loss will not completely detract from his optimism.
"I do not think that a bad election will last long," Hossain said. "I believe that those who aspire to become autocrats do not realize how much democratic engagement is in the blood of our people."
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