Bangladesh’s ongoing political crisis is ‘high risk’ for its economy

The ongoing countrywide road-rail-waterway blockade imposed by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its allies has disrupted the supply chains and significantly pushed up the cost of transport because only a fraction of the trucks and buses have been on the road during the shutdown.

Political unrest in Bangladesh is crippling the country’s already shaky economy and hurting small traders like Uddin and Mia, as the opposition parties attempt to push Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to quit ahead of a general election scheduled for January.

BNP and its allies have been demanding the restoration of a caretaker government system to oversee national elections as they believe no free and fair election can take place under Hasina’s regime.

Hasina’s party — the Awami League — has been in power since 2009, and the last two general elections of 2014 and 2018, respectively, were marred with opposition boycotts and allegations of massive vote rigging.

Hasina, the world’s longest-serving female head of a government, is also accused of brutally suppressing the opposition and dissenting voices during this nearly 15-year period.

In 2011, the country’s parliament dissolved the caretaker government, a neutral election-time administration that had successfully conducted at least four elections since the South Asian nation’s democratic transition from military dictatorship in the early 90s. Both the Awami League and BNP came to power twice, alternatively, in those elections.

Vegetable trader Afsar Uddin was distraught. He needed to pay nearly 50 percent more to bring a truck of vegetables to his shop in Karwan Bazar, the largest wholesale market for fresh produce in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka.

“Just days ago, I needed to pay 15,000 Bangladeshi takas ($136) for a truck to bring vegetables from the countryside to my shop in Dhaka. Now it has become 22,000 takas ($200) as very few truck owners are allowing their vehicles to ferry goods,” said Uddin. This is on the heels of already high inflation in the country, he pointed out.

“If we don’t increase the prices again, we will bear losses. But if we do, then we will end up with unsold, rotten vegetables,” Uddin lamented.

Tailor Samrat Mia, who lives on a daily paycheque by sewing and altering ready-made garments at Dhaka’s New Market, is also frustrated with the lack of business. “We are sitting here for the whole day but no customers.

Who would come out to buy and alter pants amidst this political crisis?” he asked. “But we have a family to [take care of] and mouths to feed. Will [politicians] bother?”