Are we already thinking about the end?

The army chief Waker-uz-Zaman went on an unusually lengthy tour in North America. He is the first person of authority categorically drawing a line in the sand about the longevity of the interim government. His answer to a hypothetical was 18 months (“if I were asked”). Since then, the non-political political leaders have been scrambling to regain authority by denying that they, the real decision-makers (apparently), have yet to set a date.

Hasn't the mention of a date been a blessing in disguise? I initially criticised the timing (while the CEO/chief adviser was ‘Rocking in the USA’). I wondered if it might even harm the military institutionally. On reflection, it has now concentrated minds. While the army chief is away, the law adviser quietly opined that an election in 2025 is ‘possible’. Is that coincidental or has there been a closed-door agreement somewhere? And now we have the spectacle of a tainted president, playing with a hand grenade, likely to blow up in his face.

Power after a mass uprising remains diffuse and opaque. Is there a palpable sense of students and young still holding the army in high regard, specifically the junior officers who refused to fire on protestors at an incredibly crucial time? Along with the nationwide magistracy powers provided to the armed forces, the concept or extent of power itself is contested. Old-style political parties, new movements of the young and a military establishment.

This official interim government is, by definition, temporary, and it is not revolutionary. Most of its officials did not win power. The young won it on the streets. Once thought of as one and the same thing, is not the reality far more messy, depending on how one defines ‘the young activists’? The present ruling dispensation remains in situ because of general goodwill and the generals. History provides a warning though. Delirium leads to disappointment rather rapidly if the daily conditions of people do not improve. The period 1972 to 1974 is one brutal example. So, can the chaotic administration somehow pull a rabbit out of the hat by beating down the price of food, by resisting externally mandated rise in energy bills and galvanising massive inward investment?

The signs are mixed, at best. The IMF-friendly point men hope that traditional monetary steps (more attuned to rich countries) will damp down inflation. Did they forget that the effect of that policy takes around 18 months to fully kick in? Interest rate rises do choke off ‘demand’ and cool prices (while workers lose jobs and businesses stop investing). As alarmed analysts have already explained, this is a very blunt tool. It does not attack the supply-side issues of rigged distribution channels, hoarding and price gouging, by so-called syndicates. After weeks of delay, the administration is rolling out a limited intervention of selling essential foods at a discount of between 20 to 30 percent though the open market system. It is reducing duties on food imports. It is belatedly and reluctantly learning about further public intervention. However, the overall cost of living (food, accommodation, utilities, education, health) continues to crush urban workers. This is a structural issue that cannot be solved simply by ‘the magic of the market’.  

Some of the appointments as quasi-ministers (termed advisers, though advising whom and to what end?) look odd. It looks NGO-heavy, advocacy oriented. Could the country of 125 million adults not find twenty to thirty able administrators (from civil service or private sector, in service or retired)? Ones with specific expertise in each ministry? For them to put out the immediate fires and bring order to government in the immediate short-term? Could the team of advisers, with little or no experience in public administration, not have settled above them to think strategically as a council, setting up structures for the medium-term? Well, that ship has sailed.

Pressure is mounting. A BNP ex-minister is warning the current incumbents to avoid thinking about “changing everything under the moon”. His party is chafing at the bit, impatient for its turn at the helm, yearning for all the rewards it missed out over a decade and a half.

Reforming the constitution is the new battle cry. But how do you reform what goes on inside the heads of old style politicians?

Meanwhile, the temporary leaders are hanging on ‘task forces’ to present reports and recommendations before the end of the year. They are also forming more commissions. The government can then make a pitch to the public to enact those ‘reforms’, crafted by hand-picked intellectuals with serious questions about diversity. Will it be tempted to ask for at least a year or more for implementation? By then, the government will also want to paint a positive picture of further help (debt, not grants) from Western-dominated financial institutions. Hoping for better security and order, which might encourage a pick-up in inward investment. There is no plan. It is all ad hoc. That is understandable but it will likely under-achieve.

Is it impossible that, earlier than advertised, Muhammad Yunus is elevated to the presidency, as he should have in the first place? How ironic would that be, given that many said the same thing about Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1972. Remove all vestiges of the past, topple statues and end holidays, but history continues to embrace in a tight grasp. You cannot break out of that suffocating bind with limited reform. Only a revolution can do that – and the NGO government is not for that, not at all.

There is a sell-by date, yet to be firmly fixed, but it is there. Soon enough, the stream of unsolicited advice from the public to the selected advisers will dry up. People must be thinking about the next phase, the new leaders to be, and the new institutions they might represent. Some students are indeed threatening a new revolutionary government. What scenarios is the military contemplating for next year? Hands-off domestically (maybe) but will geopolitics in the neighbourhood trump and feed back into the domestic? Not India, more Myanmar.

By spring 2025, will the current team be seen as a lame duck administration? Will authority seep away? A journalist once asked Ernest Hemingway: How did you go bankrupt? The author replied: Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.●

Farid Erkizia Bakht is a writer and analyst.