Bangladesh Installs Interim Government After Authoritarian Toppled

Happy Tuesday! We had an amusing line all ready to go last night about a Chicago-area woman being sentenced to nine years in prison for stealing $1.5 million worth of chicken wings from the school district where she worked. 

But then Declan sent us a screenshot of the joke we made in February 2023 about the very same woman when she was first charged. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Citing years-old data collected by the now-defunct Mars InSight lander, a study published in Proceedings of the National Acadamy of Sciences (PNAS) on Monday determined that there is liquid water on Mars, 12 miles below the surface. The NASA InSight rover landed on Mars in 2018 and recorded seismic data for four years before losing contact with Earth. “Our results have implications for understanding Mars’ water cycle, determining the fates of past surface water, searching for past or extant life, and assessing in situ resource utilization for future missions,” the researchers wrote.
• Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said on Monday that his troops have seized 1,000 square kilometers—roughly 386 square miles—of Russian territory in the Kursk oblast since they began their offensive in Russia last week. Alexei Smirnov, the acting governor of the Kursk region, told fellow Russian officials on Monday that Ukrainian forces had captured 28 settlements in the past week and that the Russians have “no understanding of where the [Ukrainian] combat units are.” Russian authorities widened civilian evacuations to the neighboring Belgorod oblast, ordering at least 180,000 residents to leave the two border regions. Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed during a public meeting on Monday to “push and kick the enemy out,” and added that he believes Ukraine’s motive is “to improve its future negotiating position.” 
• The Defense Department on Sunday directed a guided-missile submarine to the Middle East region and accelerated the travel of a U.S. aircraft carrier and several F-35 fighter jets currently en route to the area as Israel braces for a potential attack from Iran. The Washington Post reported Monday an additional U.S. destroyer—the USS Laboon—was also relocated to the eastern Mediterranean Sea from the Red Sea. “Secretary [of Defense Lloyd] Austin reiterated the United States’ commitment to take every possible step to defend Israel and noted the strengthening of U.S. military force posture and capabilities throughout the Middle East in light of escalating regional tensions,” Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said, referencing a Sunday phone call between Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Monday the IDF is on “peak alert” for a potential attack from Iran or Hezbollah.
• Peace talks aimed at ending Sudan’s ongoing civil war appeared to stall on Monday, after a Sudanese government official told Reuters that negotiations with the United States in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia—intended to convince Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) to attend ceasefire negotiations with the opposing Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday—had ended with no agreement. After more than a year of civil war, the U.N. International Organization for Migration warned on Monday that the African nation’s humanitarian situation is at a “catastrophic breaking point,” with more than 10.7 million people in the country currently seeking safety from the fighting.
• The FBI confirmed on Monday that it is investigating the alleged hack of former President Donald Trump’s campaign, as well as attempts to breach the email accounts of officials working on President Joe Biden’s campaign before he dropped out of the race. The supposed hack of the Trump campaign—which reportedly resulted in an opposition research file on Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, being sent to several media outlets—came days after Microsoft issued a report noting that Iranian hackers had “sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor.” It’s not yet clear whether the two incidents are related.
• Punchbowl News reported Monday that the House of Representatives’ bipartisan task force probing the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump has begun its investigation, sending letters to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security requesting all information on the attack be made available to Congress. Congressional leaders formed the task force—led by GOP Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania and Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado—in late July, weeks after a sniper shot and wounded Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Other congressional committees have held public hearings on the attempt, with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigning the day after she gave testimony to the House Oversight Committee on July 22.
• Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers filed notice on Monday that they plan to sue the Justice Department over the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago mansion in August 2022. Filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, which allows those injured by the “wrongful or negligent” actions of federal employees working in their official capacity to seek damages from the federal government, Trump’s legal team has said it will seek $100 million in damages related to claims the executed search warrant maliciously harmed the former president. “The tortious acts against the President are rooted in intrusion upon seclusion, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process,” Trump lawyer Daniel Epstein wrote. “[Attorney General Merrick] Garland and [FBI Director Christopher] Wray decided to stray from established protocol to injure President Trump.”
• A New York judge ruled on Monday that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could not appear on the ballot in the state, holding that Kennedy had used a “sham” address to claim residency in the state—which he also used to gain ballot access in other states. Kennedy’s lawyers have said they’ll appeal the decision. Kennedy—who spends most of his time at his home in Los Angeles and whose running mate is a California resident—is currently on the ballot in 19 states.

‘A Second Independence’ 

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had ruled the South Asian country with a vice-like grip for 15 years, and as recently as this spring, she seemed poised to continue in that way. After January elections that the opposition boycotted and that the U.S. State Department assessed were neither free nor fair, she claimed a fourth straight term as prime minister.

But over the last month, Hasina proved yet another case study of how political power can be lost gradually, then suddenly. Weeks of student-led protests swelled into a popular uprising that succeeded in ousting Hasina last Monday, causing the 76-year-old ruler to flee to neighboring India just hours before the demonstrators took over her residence.

An interim government led by professor and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus was sworn in on Thursday, with Yunus saying Bangladesh now has the opportunity for a “second independence.” But the future of the country is far from certain as newly minted leadership tries to restore order and chart a stable course for reforming a system previously consolidated around Hasina.

Hasina initially came to power as a pro-democratic figure, continuing the legacy of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman—the leader of the Bangladesh independence movement who was assassinated, along with most of his family, in a 1975 military coup. But over the last 15 years, the prime minister’s rule became characterized by political repression, corruption, and sustained human rights violations, including reports of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and torture. 

How did Bangladesh upend its government in such short order? The short answer is jobs—or rather, the lack thereof. Protests erupted last month over a decades-old quota system that awarded government jobs—coveted for their stability and high pay—to the descendants of veterans of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War that saw the country separate from Pakistan. Hasina scrapped the system in 2018 following student-led protests, but the country’s High Court reinstated the quotas in a June ruling. Under the quotas, 30 percent of government jobs were reserved for veterans’ descendants and another 26 percent earmarked for other groups, such as indigenous communities and women from underdeveloped areas.

Generations removed from the war, the earmarking has become a source of discontent with millions of young people out of work. The number of available government jobs represents a fraction of the unemployed—more than 400,000 university graduates compete each year for approximately 3,000 jobs. But the system came to represent a symbol of corrupt political patronage that reflected the failure of the Hasina regime to provide sufficient economic opportunity to Bangladeshis.

The demonstrations began peacefully last month but turned violent as students clashed with the police, leading Hasina to dispatch the youth wing of her Awami League (AL) party to the streets to try to put down the protests. Hasina labeled the protesters traitors, calling them “razakars”—a reference to the people who allied with Pakistan to fight against Bangladesh in 1971. Dozens of protesters were killed by the end of July—and hundreds more injured—but the crackdown only expanded the demonstrations. Then internet access was cut off—likely by the government—and police declared a public curfew with a “shoot-on-sight” order for violators. Ultimately, more than 400 people were killed—mostly civilians who were shot but also some members of the police force. 

Perhaps sensing the situation was becoming untenable, the Supreme Court pared down the quota system in a ruling on July 21, allowing for 93 percent of government positions to be filled based on merit. But by that point, the unrest had taken on a deeper resonance. “It’s no longer just about job quotas,” one demonstrator in the capital city of Dhaka told Agence France-Presse. “We want future generations to be able to live freely.” 

The calls for a meritocracy were a stand-in for much larger societal problems. “The quota issue is the tip of the iceberg of economic and political discontent that lies underneath the surface,” Geoffrey Macdonald, a senior adviser and former Bangladesh country director at the International Republican Institute, explained last month. “The perceived unfairness of guaranteeing jobs to the grandchildren of freedom fighters—seen by many as a giveaway to loyalists of the AL, the party that led the independence fight—is exacerbated by rising inflation, a poor job market for university graduates and instances of egregious corruption that inevitably benefit government officials.” 

Hasina’s coup de grâce came last week, as the number of demonstrators in the capital swelled to tens of thousands, and the military informed the prime minister that they couldn’t prevent the protesters from reaching her residence without causing a bloodbath. Indeed, nearly 100 people had been killed the day prior. Hasina quickly decamped to India. 

Demonstrators ransacked the residence hours later, with looting and rioting following throughout the capital and beyond. Hundreds more people were reportedly killed in the lawless chaos after Hasina’s exit, and many police went into hiding for fear of retribution over their earlier crackdown on the protests and association with the Hasina regime. In the last month, protesters vandalized hundreds of police stations and set dozens alight. 

Hundreds of students and protesters tried to restore order in the wake of Hasina’s ouster, sweeping streets, directing traffic, and even forming security squads to protect police stations and religious sites from attacks or vandalism. “This was our movement,” one university student told The Daily Star last week. “So, we felt obliged to help restore law and order.” 

Student leaders backed 84-year-old Yunus to head a new government last week. President Mohammed Shahbuddin—technically the acting constitutional authority in Hasina’s absence, but largely a figurehead—and the military blessed the selection. 

On Thursday, Yunus was sworn in as the head of a new interim government that quickly received international recognition, including from the U.S., China, and India. “We think the interim government will play a vital role in establishing long-term peace and political stability in Bangladesh,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters. 

Yunus’ position in Bangladesh society puts him a rung above other would-be political leaders in the eyes of the student protesters. “The choice of Yunus is a clear testimony that unlike on previous occasions, when political parties, in consultation with the military and bureaucracy, decided who would head the government, a new political force is making the decision this time around,” Ali Riaz, the president of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies, wrote last week. 

The new leader’s first move was to call for an end to the violence. “Law and order is our first task,” Yunus told reporters at the airport on Thursday as he returned after undergoing medical treatment in Paris. “My call to the people is: if you have trust in me, then make sure there will be no attacks against anyone, anywhere in the country.” For now, stability seems to be returning. Police resumed patrolling the capital’s streets on Monday.

Yunus selected a cabinet of advisers that included leaders of the student movement, civil society veterans, and representatives from Hindu and indigenous communities. Notably absent are representatives from Hasina’s party. “Professor Muhammad Yunus is one of the most respected people in the country,” Riaz told TMD, citing the professor’s anti-poverty work. In the 1980s, Yunus pioneered micro-loans as a way to help the poor start businesses, work that eventually earned him his Nobel Peace Prize. Then-President Barack Obama also awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

But the economist ran afoul of Hasina after briefly trying to form a political party in 2007 when the country was under a military-controlled interim government and Hasina was being held under arrest. Hasina targeted Yunus upon returning to power in 2009, getting him fired from the development bank he founded and launching a series of legal investigations and charges against him—including one as recently as June. “Professor Yunus became the most known person [who] symbolized how the Hasina regime treated anyone they don’t like,” Riaz said. 

Yunus said he wants to govern according to the “path our students show us.” Some of those students, like Asif Mahmud, a 25-year-old Dhaka University student, are now in government. “We want the constitution and other institutions that had been compromised under Sheikh Hasina to be restored,” said Mahmud, appointed to lead the Ministry of Youth and Sports. “We want reforms and policies based on research. … We want to bring a system where whoever comes to power will have to be accountable.”

But a decade and a half of authoritarian consolidation of the state will be challenging to unwind. “Over the last 15 years, what happened with this regime? They have decimated the entire state structures,” Riaz said. “They have decimated the civil administration. They have used the police as their henchmen. It has acted like a partisan unit. The banking sector has been filled with and used by the party loyalists.” The head of Bangladesh’s central bank and the chief justice of the Supreme Court resigned on Friday and Saturday, respectively. 

With that task ahead of them, it’s unclear when this interim government may hold elections. Riaz argued that, while elections are important, protesters are concerned that rushing into an election before reforms are instituted could result in another authoritarian seizing power. Representatives from several political parties met with the interim government yesterday and reportedly endorsed waiting to hold elections until they can be held under free and fair conditions. 

Whether the interim government can maintain stability and institute substantial reforms remains to be seen. Riaz told TMD that the interim government will have to decide if it wants to be simply a caretaker that holds the country over until the next elections, however flawed they may be, or attempt to rebuild the state. “A decision has to be made, which path? Both of them have their ups and downs, limitations and challenges,” he said. “Bangladesh is standing at a very critical juncture of its history.” 

Worth Your Time

• In an interview with the New York Times’ Lulu Garcia-Navarro, conservative Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma reflects on his faith, the doomed immigration bill he negotiated across the aisle, and where former President Donald Trump fits into the Senate’s legislative agenda. “I honestly believe that exact bill would have passed in December,” he said of the immigration bill he negotiated. “But by the time it got into February and we were in the heart of the presidential primary election, it became immediately the major focus in the election because the Republican primary suddenly got resolved. It looked very obvious that president Trump was going to be there and everything collapsed at that point. If that bill would have gone in December, I think it would have passed. … Politics won out over policy, no doubt on that. I had colleagues that said, ‘Hey, this is very technical and I’m going to need a week to be able to read this and review it before I can vote on it.’ I said, I totally understand that, we’ll give you the time to do that. But within 30 minutes of the bill being released, they were putting out statements saying, ‘I’m opposed to it, it’s terrible.’”
• Is everything “national security”? For Foreign Affairs, Dan Drezner looks at how national security became a catch-all term to get more eyes on niche policy concerns. “Problems in world politics rarely die; at best, they tend to ebb very slowly,” he wrote. “Newer crises command urgent attention. Issues on the back burner, if not addressed, inevitably migrate to the top of the queue. Policy entrepreneurs across the political spectrum want the administration, members of Congress, and other shapers of U.S. foreign policy to label their issue a national security priority, in the hope of gaining more attention and resources. … But if everything is defined as national security, nothing is a national security priority. Without a more considered discussion among policymakers about what is and what is not a matter of national security, Washington risks spreading its resources too thin across too broad an array of issues. This increases the likelihood of missing a genuine threat to the safety and security of the United States.” 

Presented Without Comment

Former President Donald Trump, speaking with Elon Musk on X on Monday night:

If something happens with this election, which would be a horror show, we’ll meet the next time in Venezuela, because it’ll be a far safer place to meet than our country. Okay? So we’ll go, you and I will go and we’ll have a meeting and dinner in Venezuela.

Also Presented Without Comment

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked how a Kamala Harris administration might differ from the Biden administration:

They’ve been aligned for the last three and a half years. There’s not been any daylight.

Also Also Presented Without Comment

Miami Herald: Why Trump Flew to Campaign Events on Jeffrey Epstein’s Plane Last Weekend

Trump, enroute on his own private plane to a campaign event in Bozeman, Montana last week, unexpectedly landed in Billings because of mechanical problems, a campaign spokeswoman said. He and part of his staff then flew on a small charter to Bozeman for a rally Friday night. The next day, he switched to another larger Gulfstream with a serial number that matches a plane once owned by Epstein, his former neighbor in Palm Beach, the campaign confirmed.

“The campaign had no awareness that the charter plane had been owned by Mr. Epstein,” the spokeswoman said, adding that the charter was commissioned by a vendor that has often been used by the campaign. “We heard about the former owner through the media.”

In the Zeitgeist

After an Olympics hiatus, your regularly scheduled Zeitgeist content is back, with a great new song from the inimitable Leon Bridges. 

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: Kevin explained why (🔒) “weird” is a fitting description for the “alpha male,” status-obsessed sects of the New Right, the Dispatch Politics team reviewed J.D. Vance’s Sunday show circuit, and Nick argued it’s time to take Trump’s increasingly fragile state of mind seriously. 
• On the podcasts: In a two-for-one Advisory Opinions special, Sarah and David are joined by former FTC commissioner Noah Phillips to discuss the state of antitrust law and John Inazu to discuss his new book Learning to Disagree. 
• On the site: Joseph Roche files a dispatch from Kyiv exploring the potential goals for Ukraine’s recent operation inside Russian territory, Nick Hafen explains the upcoming Supreme Court case related to a Tennessee law restricting the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors, and Chris Stirewalt argues that the “stolen valor” claims against Tim Walz are the best thing the GOP has going for it right now (and that ain’t much).

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