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Political instability evidently impacts business and growth. The economy that Bangladesh's interim government inherited from the past authoritarian regime was already a severely mauled and malfunctioning one. Even so, as the incumbent interim government is now in charge, it has to accept the blame, vicariously though, for anything going wrong with the economy. Since economy is not an island functioning independently of politics, it cannot be expected to do well unless the traditional parties that were in favour of the change but not at the forefront of the uprising and the student-led political force that spearheaded the political upheaval are able to see eye to eye in the post-changeover dispensation. Undeniably, the violent political change of August 5, 2024 was not a run-of-the-mill event like election through which governments in democracies change hands.
The people took part in the bloody revolutionary political events with the hope that it would finally put an end to the old way of politics. They expect that there will be some radical changes in the political system so that they may not again be trapped in the kind of political nightmare they experienced during the last 15 plus years. Obviously, the post-uprising interim government has to meet the expectations of the people who want radical reforms to the prevailing political order. But for it to do so would require cooperation from all the political entities who want change. In this connection, some political analysts and traditional political parties are questioning if the interim government has the mandate in the first place to take up the task of, say, reforming the constitution, the election commission, anti-corruption commission, human rights commission and different departments of the administration.
Well, one cannot deny that the war of independence was a revolutionary event. So, the government that took power after the independence war was a revolutionary one, not an elected one. The members of that government comprised parliamentarians from a pre-independence legislature whose election was held in 1970 under a legal framework created by the order of the then-military dictator of Pakistan,Yahiya Khan. So, though post-Independence force of political change was not an elected one, it still had the legitimacy to form a government, frame constitution and do all other functions of a government and no one questioned it. Who gave that mandate to the post-liberation government? It is the people who fought the revolutionary independence war that gave it the legitimacy to rule and the mandate to bring about the expected changes in the administration and society.
So, it is not true that election is the only source of popular mandate to govern a country and effect necessary reforms. Question may also be raised about the duration of the revolutionary struggle as an argument for earning the right to or legitimacy of assuming political power. History provides ample evidence of short-lived revolutionary events putting a political force in power with massive popular support. Revolutionary change of August 5 of 2024, too, has given the incumbent interim government the popular mandate to carry out the reforms and other tasks based on which future elected governments will be able to present the people with a political order that is not old wine in a new bottle. That is why a consensus among all the existing political forces supporting the change and the new political force emerging from the July-August uprising is necessary to bring about the political change for which so many people laid down their lives. The sooner such political understanding is reached, the better would it be for the interim government to perform its task of creating the platform for the future elected government to carry further forward the undertakings of the sanguinary July-August revolt. To that end, the incumbent government should be enabled to lay the groundwork for building the longed-for changes. But at the same time, along with political order, the economy needs also to be rebuilt virtually from scratch as it suffered the mindless depredations of the forces that the authoritarian regime unleashed. So, of the many multifaceted challenges the interim government has been grappling with are a legacy of the past that include high inflation, hollowed out banks, precariously shrunken foreign exchange reserve, to mention but a few. How is then the economy faring in the new year under the interim government? Going by what the central bank stated following presentation of its monetary policy statement, there are still multiple hurdles to face in the second half of the current fiscal year (2024-25). The GDP growth will continue to plod along within 4.0 to 5.0 percent range.
It is yet to recover the output losses due to natural calamities immediately after political changeover, the social instability attributable to the post-uprising jolt society received. Then comes the issues of labour unrest, supply chain disruptions, shortage in gas supply slowing down industrial production and worsening unemployment situation. The government is also to continue the work of balancing fiscal and monetary reforms, restore confidence in the financial system to pave the way for sustained stability and growth. Meanwhile, export and remittance, the two main sources of the country's hard currency earning, seem to have been looking up. In the first half of FY25, export grew by 12.8 per cent, thanks to the impressive performance of the knitwear and womenswear. The inward remittance, too, grew by 24 per cent during the first half of FY25. No doubt, these developments indicate a sign of confidence both in the government and the economy.
However, there is still a long way to go for attaining a semblance of stability and growth. There is hardly any reason to be optimistic about the prospects of the economy for the second half of the FY25. Time is short for the interim government to get the economy back on track and carry out the reforms. So, it deserves the required cooperation and support from all stakeholders to complete the reforms it is tasked with.