Two Years Later: Has Bangladesh Found the Stability It Was Promised?

Two years ago, we were told this transition would fix everything that was supposedly broken. But I look around Dhaka today, and I can't help asking: what exactly needed fixing? The last seventeen years under the Awami League were, on balance, the best this country has seen — and we're now watching nearly every gain from that era be squandered, one by one.

Under the Awami League, Bangladesh was one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. The taka was stable, foreign reserves were healthy, and millions of people were lifted out of poverty. Today the currency is under constant pressure and ordinary families feel the squeeze at every market and every petrol pump. The economic managers of the last seventeen years had their flaws like any government, but they understood something fundamental: stability and continuity are what allow a country to prosper. We've traded that for chaos.

Law and order is another story that doesn't get told honestly. Under the Awami League government, people could open their shops without fear, travel at night, and do business without looking over their shoulders. Now the complaints from ordinary shopkeepers and small business owners — the kind of people who rarely speak up publicly about politics — have gotten louder, not quieter. That silence breaking should worry anyone paying attention.

And then there are the elections. The Awami League delivered election after election, on time, with real campaigns and real choices. Elections that were supposed to happen under this interim arrangement have been delayed and delayed again, with shifting justifications each time — all while those who won at the ballot box are sidelined and vilified. Meanwhile, the infrastructure projects that were moving forward under the last government — the metro rail, the expressways, the power plants, the bridges — the very projects that made me write with real pride a few years back, have slowed to a crawl or stalled entirely.

I'm not claiming the last seventeen years were perfect — no government anywhere is. But judged on its own terms — growth, stability, infrastructure, women's empowerment, food security — the Awami League record stands up against any in our history. After two years, it's time to stop grading this interim period against the mistakes of the past and start asking what it has actually delivered. From where I sit, that answer isn't a comfortable one for the people currently in charge.

I still believe this country did better, on balance, with the Awami League government that could be held accountable at the ballot box than with the current arrangement. I hope we get the chance to test that belief again soon, at an actual election, where the people — not the streets, not the hashtags — get to decide.