Caretaker Gov’t Paves Way for Extremism in Bangladesh (Rep. Gary Ackerman)

In Bangladesh, a caretaker government backed by the army has delayed elections until sometime next year and has instead arrested one former Prime Minister, is threatening to arrest another and has imprisoned hundreds if not thousands of politicians and business leaders on vague charges of corruption.

While I believe that neither of the two major parties in Bangladesh have brought any great good to the Bangladeshi people, I’m hard pressed to understand how an extra-constitutional process brings about political reform. From where I sit this looks remarkably like what President Musharraf did in Pakistan — clear the field of the mainstream parties and inadvertently open the door to the Islamist parties, some of whom have particularly odious associations with known terrorists and terrorist organizations.

The administration has previously described Bangladesh as a moderate Muslim democratic state. After the caretaker government gets done however, describing Bangladesh as moderate and democratic will strain credulity.