How Bangladesh’s Ousted Leader Sheikh Hasina Could Stage an Unlikely Comeback

When Sajeeb Wazed Joy’s mom got into hot water, he did what many of us do these days: he messaged the family WhatsApp group. But the trouble in question wasn’t a parking fine or mystery ailment. Joy’s mother, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed, was facing a popular uprising intent on forcing her ouster. The cause was the reintroduction of employment quotas for descendants of heroes of the South Asian nation’s 1971 independence struggle led by Joy’s grandfather, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

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“We were all surprised at the quota movement,” Joy tells TIME in his first U.S. media interview since his mother’s toppling. “In fact, I said in the WhatsApp group, ‘30% quotas are too much; we should reduce it to 5%.’ And someone chimed in, ‘Hey, we’re grandchildren of freedom fighters too.’ And I jokingly replied, ‘That’s why I left 5%!’”

In the end, the quota issue was simply the spark that ignited a powder keg of public discontent over inequality and political repression that exploded over two weeks in July. After a violent crackdown on peaceful protesters that claimed at least 1,000 lives, the last the world saw of Hasina was as she was being bundled into a military helicopter with protesters closing in. As intruders ransacked her official residence in Dhaka, carrying away keepsakes like clothes and ornaments, Hasina floated through the smoggy skies to India, where she remains till this day, licking her wounds far from public view.

“She’s quite upset and frustrated at the situation in the country that all her hard work over the last 15 years is pretty much coming undone,” says Joy, who runs an IT business in the U.S. and formerly served as an honorary adviser to his mother on technology matters.

Back in Bangladesh, an almighty reckoning is underway. Following 15 years of uninterrupted rule, practically every government institution has been politicized by Hasina’s Awami League party, engendering deep distrust of the military, courts, civil service, and especially security services. The job of piecing back together South Asia’s second biggest economy of over 170 million people has fallen to a motley band of student leaders and the military generals who finally forced Hasina’s resignation.

They enlisted Muhammad Yunus—a Nobel peace laureate and social entrepreneur, who under Hasina faced hundreds of civil and criminal charges he insisted were politically motivated and have now been quashed—to lead the interim government toward fresh elections, which they say may take around 18 months. In the meantime, a six-pronged reform process is taking place, focusing on the election system, police administration, judiciary, anti-corruption commission, public administration, and national constitution. “The aim of these [reforms] will be the initiation of an accountable political system against corruption, looting, and genocide,” Yunus said in a televised address on Aug. 26. “If we lose this opportunity now, we will be defeated as a nation.”

The weeks since Hasina’s departure have indeed been chaotic given the political and security vacuum. The Awami League has been purged at all levels of government and its members arrested. Thousands of police deserted lest they be targeted in reprisals (at least 44 officers were killed.) Meanwhile, Khaleda Zia, leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Hasina’s longtime nemesis, was released from house arrest, and a ban was rescinded on Bangladesh’s main Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami.

But the euphoria over Hasina’s exit has since metastasized into bickering over which direction the country should take. On Sept. 31, Transparency International Bangladesh labeled the government’s decision to dissolve a committee charged with reviewing textbooks as a “concerning and dangerous” compromise with Islamic fundamentalists. In response, leaders of the conservative Hefazat-e-Islam advocacy group denounced those concerns as “fascist.”

It’s febrile, messy, and rancorous: all the hallmarks of true democracy, reformists say. Though the fact that no political party is part of the interim government means calls for fresh elections will only get louder. “This government has legitimacy, it has public support, but it doesn’t have popular mandate,” says Mubashar Hasan, a Bangladeshi scholar at the University of Oslo in Norway.

Indeed, reformists are in a quandary. To enact meaningful reforms and hold to account those responsible for abuses will take time, but a rudderless country whose ordinary people struggle economically will soon lose patience. Last week, the Asian Development Bank lowered its growth forecast for Bangladesh’s economic growth from 6.6% to 5.1% due to the political tumult as well as recent catastrophic flooding.

If unrest and paralysis continue, a beleaguered populace may look more fondly at Hasina’s record. Bangladesh was the Asia-Pacific’s fastest growing economy over the past decade, with GDP rising from $71 billion in 2006 to $460 billion in 2022 (even if inequality and political repression equally soared). In the run up to January’s election, which was condemned by the U.S. as neither free nor fair, BNP workers were hit with millions of legal cases. Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Bangladesh 147 out of 180 countries worldwide—level with Iran and one place above Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

The fear for reformists is that the latter fades in memory. A return for Hasina “is quite credible,” says Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center. “If you look at the history of dynastic politics in South Asia, you can never rule out dynastic parties even when they appear to be down and out.”

Other observers are less confident. After all, across Bangladeshi society, statues of Sheikh Mujib have been toppled, posters of Hasina defaced and replaced by lurid graffiti decrying her as a dictator. “That’s how Sheikh Hasina’s legacy is being imagined among the young population,” says Mubashar.

Joy says that “no decisions have been made” regarding whether Hasina would return to stand in elections.

Yet all agree that dysfunction in the interim government would considerably boost her chances. “There is no way for Sheikh Hasina and her party to play any significant overt role in Bangladeshi politics for the next decade,” says Zillur Rahman, the executive director of the Dhaka-based Centre for Governance Studies think tank and a talk show host. “This, of course, could change if the interim government fails monumentally.”

Indeed, a politicized bureaucracy is trying every trick in the book to stymie reforms, says Shahidul Haque, a retired Bangladesh Army major-general, ambassador, and defense attaché. “They are trying to destabilize this government,” he says. “And if no visible improvements happen people are going to lose patience.”

Joy is counting on it. “If they want to run the country for a year or 18 months, actually I believe that’s perfect,” he says, pointing to today’s “lawlessness” with “the mob, the protesters, basically on a rampage.”

Certainly, Hasina’s fall provided room for a spate of attacks on police and minorities, though analysts say the scale of bloodletting has been sensationalized. “There are no pogroms, and we haven’t seen any recent attacks on a large scale,” says Meenakshi Ganguly, Asia deputy director for Human Rights Watch. “There isn’t an absolute breakdown in rule of law.”

Washington has emerged as a key player to ensure that remains the case. The fuzzy legality of the interim government means that U.S. backing—as demonstrated by Yunus’s meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House late last month—is key to retaining the engagement of institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. “U.S. support is the most important factor for the stability of the interim government,” says Haque.

Still, the longer paralysis reigns the greater chance revisionist narratives may take root. While admitting that his mother made mistakes during the crackdown, and not disputing the death toll, Joy insists that at least half the killings were committed by “terrorists” likely armed by a “foreign intelligence agency.”

Supportive evidence is scant—“There are plenty of videos to show that the police used excessive force and that they had orders to crush the protest,” says Ganguly—though in the social media age it’s shockingly easy for “alternative facts” to propagate.

Still, a key obstacle for the Awami League is how much support it still retains even amongst its own members. In the wake of the July uprising, practically all the senior party leaders fled the country, leaving the rank and file to suffer reprisals. “There is a deep-seated sense among the former ruling party who believe that the way Sheikh Hasina left was a total betrayal to them,” says Mubashar.

There’s also mounting opprobrium at the alleged plundering of state coffers. According to local media analysis of U.S.-based research institute Global Financial Integrity data, nearly $150 billion was siphoned out of the country by influential people and businesses during the last 15 years of Hasina’s rule. On Monday, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit froze Joy’s local accounts also. He denies all corruption allegations. “Show us where the money is,” he says. “It’s easy to make accusations.”

The question is whether the Awami League is combining flinging mud with the required introspection and internal reform to once again be a legitimate political force. “The only way forward is for the Awami League to try and acknowledge mistakes and start building itself back as a democratic party that will contest elections,” says Ganguly.

Some have called for the Awami League to be banned outright if its leaders are found guilty of charges of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.” The notion prompts scoffs from Joy. “How can you ban the oldest and largest political party in Bangladesh?” he says. “It’s not legally possible.” Even reformists and rival parties are unsure that outright banning a party that, at one time at least, enjoyed enormous grassroots support would serve the national interest. Ultimately, the goal is to break free from the same cycle of retributive politics that has dogged Bangladesh for decades. Though whether that can be achieved with the participation of notoriously bitter and vindictive Hasina is a huge question.

“The biggest weakness of the Awami League is its cult of personality centered around Sheikh Hasina,” says Rahman, the Bangladeshi think tank director. “They cannot imagine an alternative to Sheikh Mujib’s daughter.”

Not even his grandson? “Unless he can reinvent himself from the ground up as a people’s leader in Bangladesh, he likely has no political future,” says Rahman. Mubashar, the Oslo-based scholar, agrees: “He doesn’t have the respect and attachment among young people. And demography matters.”

Joy hasn’t decided yet whether to enter the fray. “I’ve never had political ambition,” he shrugs. “But given the current scenario, who knows? I haven’t made any decision.” Perhaps another conversation for the family WhatsApp.