Tushar Shetty
A primer on Bangladesh’s convoluted electoral history and the various players involved, featuring host Tushar Shetty and guests Mubashar Hasan and Smruti S. Pattanaik.
Beyond the Indus returns in the new year with an election special series – The Road to ‘24 – that analyses the dynamic, colorful, and chaotic elections taking place across South Asia this year. For our first election, we take a look at Bangladesh, where the incumbent, Sheikh Hasina, presides over an increasingly authoritarian government fighting an embattled yet determined opposition.
We are joined by Mubashar Hasan (an expert in Bangladesh society and politics currently based at the University of Oslo) and Smruti S. Pattanaik (a research fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses), who help us understand Bangladesh’s convoluted electoral history, the various players involved, and the messy and often violent election campaign ongoing in Bangladesh. We also discuss Bangladesh’s mixed economic progress, and the murky role of foreign players and their impact on the election.
First published in The Diplomat, on January 3, 2024
