The Bangladesh Awami League (বাংলাদেশ আওয়ামী লীগ Bangladesh Aoami Lig) or the Bangladesh People's League is the main opposition party in Bangladesh and the political catalyst for Bengali discontent and rebellion in 1971. In the 2001 general election it got 40% of the vote and 62 of 300 seats, making it the second-largest party behind the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
The Awami League was founded on June 231949 as the "All Pakistan Awami Muslim League", as a breakaway faction of the "All Pakistan Muslim League". It was then led by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy [link]. The word "Muslim" was dropped in 1955. There was some initial confusion when the party was created, because two parties of the same name were created in Pakistan one in the East Wing, one in the West Wing. One was created by Maulana Abdul Hameed Khan Bhashani. One of its three initial assistant general secretaries was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The other was created in the Northwest Frontier Province in West Pakistan by Peer Manki Shareef. In February 1950, both were merged, creating the "All Pakistan Awami Muslim League" with Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy as its leader. In 1954 along with its allies the Awami League won the national election; Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy became the fifth Prime Minister of Pakistan. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman became a cabinet minister. On 26 July1957 Maulana Abdul Hameed Khan defected, creating the 'National Awami Party'. As the years went by, the Awami League became associated with the often oppressed Bangla-speaking majority in East Pakistan. In the elections of 1970 the Awami League won 160 of 162 East Pakistan seats in the National Assembly but none of West Pakistan's 138 seats. [link][link]. 160 being a healthy majority in the 313-seat Assembly, the Awami League was in a position to make a government without any coalition partner. This led directly to the events of the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Post Independence
The party is now headed by Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of the late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The Awami League has been in government for two terms, eight years and a half, in the 18 democratic years among 34 years of Bangladesh's independence. It came to power after independence in 1972 under Mujib. However, the party was disturbed by internal corruption and failed to some extent to repair the nation's wounds from the independence war. As Bangladesh continued exporting jute to Egypt violating US economic sanction, the Nixon government barred food-grain supplies from reaching the country that Bangladesh had already paid for. As a result, the famine of 1974 was inevitable. 28,000 people died, and support for Mujib declined dramatically.
In January 1975, Mujib declared a state of emergency and later assumed the presidency after the Awami League-dominated parliament made the presidency an executive post. He renamed the League the Bangladesh Workers and Peasants 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. Many of opposition political workers, mostly revolutionary communist elements, were jailed after three MP's were killed by the communist insurgency. The crackdown on opposition was aided by the elit paramilitary force Rakkhi Bahini.
These negative developments led to a widespread dissatisfaction among the people and even inside the Army. In 15 August1975 some junior members of the armed forces in Dhaka, led by Major Faruk Rahman, and Major Rashid killed Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and all his family members who lived with him. Within two months' time four of its top leaders, Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, captain M Mansur Ali and AHM Qamaruzzaman were killed inside the Dhaka Central Jail on November 31975. Only two daughters of Mujib, who were in West Germany as a part of a cultural exchange program, survived the massacre. They later took political assylam in UK. The elder daughter, Sheikh Hasina, later moved to India and lived in self-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 future.
After 1975, the party remained split in rivalling factions, and fared poorly in the 1978 parliamentary elections held under a military government. In 1981, Sheikh Hasina returned after the largest party faction elected her its president, took over party leadership, and successfully united the factions. However, because of being underage she could not take part in the 1981 presidential elections that followed the assassination of military dictator Ziaur Rahman. Throughout the following nine years of military dictatorship by General Ershad, AL participated in some polls and boycotted most, nearly all of which were allegedly rigged.
When the first free and acceptable parliamentary polls since 1975 was held in 1991, Awami League emerged as the largest opposition party in the parliament. It made major electoral gains in 1994 as its candidates won mayoral elections in the two largest cities of the country: capital Dhaka and 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, Awami League formed a "Government of National Unity," and elected a non-partisan person, retired Chief Justice, PresidentShahabuddin Ahmed to be the head of state.
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 detereorating law and order situation troubled the government. Its pro-poor policies achieved wide micro-econimic development but that left the country's wealthy business class dissatisfied. 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 cases 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.
In October 2001 election, the party won 40% of the votes up from 36% of 1996 and 33% of 1991 but got only 62 out of 300 seats as a right wing nationalist-fundamentalist alliance won two-thirds majority in the parliament with 46% votes. Since then, Awami League has formed a left-leaning alliance of 14 parties with who it intends to form an elctoral coalition for participating in future parliamentary polls, expected in December 2006 or January 2007.
In its second term in opposition since 1991, the party faced assassination of important party personnel. Popular young leader Ahsanullah Master, a MP from Gazipur, was killed in 2004. This was followed by a grenade attack on Hasina in Dhaka, resulting in the death of 21 party supporters, including party women's secretary Ivy Rahman. Finally, party's electoral secretary, ex finance minister, and veteran diplomat Shah A.M.S. Kibria, a MP from Hobiganj, was killed in a grenade attack in Sylhet later that year.
In June 2005, the Awami League got a boost, when AL nominated incumbent mayor A.B.M. Mohiuddin Chowdhury won the important mayoral election in commercial capital Chittagong by a huge margin. This election was seen as a showdown between the opposition and the ruling party. 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 on him failed to explode.
It is widely expected that Mujib's grandson Sajib Wajed Joy, an expatriot Bangladeshi student currently in the US, would succeed Hasina as party chief in near future. Though he is yet to formally join Awami League his increasingly more frequent visits to Bangladesh, attendance of party programs, and growing popularity among party workers all indicate a repeatition of the South Asian political culture of family succession despite his being married to a non-Muslim US citizen.
