Awami League

The Awami League is the party of Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka matters: an election for Bangladesh. The episode presents the party’s long period in power as a source of institutional weakening, reserve depletion, and public anger before the uprising that opened Bangladesh’s new election cycle.

The party is temporarily banned from participating in the election, but Mark Johnson argues that the next government will probably need to rehabilitate it in some form because many Bangladeshis would still vote for it. In the source, that makes the Awami League question central to whether the Democratic Transition Election becomes a durable settlement or a one-sided purge.

Connections

• Sheikh Hasina — party leader removed from power.
• Bangladesh — national election context.
• Democratic Transition Election — concept capturing the inclusion-versus-accountability problem.
• Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh — main competitors in the Awami League’s absence.