ASIA : Bangladeshis Get a Breath of Fresh Heir

The father led one of the most impoverished countries in the world to independence. Now the daughter is on the verge of being summoned to govern it.

For Hasina Wajed of Bangladesh, the last days have been ones to savor--a vindication of the bitter struggle she has waged over the last two years against her chief political rival.

Wajed and her allies forced the holding of repeat elections this month under a neutral caretaker government and came up the big winners.

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party of outgoing Prime Minister Khaleda Zia was routed; Wajed’s Awami League won 146 seats in Parliament, 30 more than the BNP.

The Awami League’s total is shy of an absolute majority in the 300-seat chamber. But Wajed is sure of victory because President Abdur Rahman Biswas said Thursday that he will invite the leader of the biggest party in Parliament to form the next government.

Wajed has already lined up enough smaller parties to be sure of a majority.

Bangladeshis will be anxiously watching to see how the next days and weeks play out. The low-lying country wedged into the elbow of the Bay of Bengal has been ruled by generals for most of its tumultuous 25-year history and has witnessed 18 attempted coups, three successful ones and the assassination of two presidents.

Only a month ago, Biswas fired the chief of the Bangladeshi army, Lt. Gen. Abu Saleh Mohammed Nasim, for flouting his orders and allegedly masterminding a military rebellion.

For Bangladesh’s 125 million people, the past two years have been wearying ones of strikes, protests and politically driven street violence between the supporters of Wajed and Zia; the tumult has stymied most attempts by the government to court foreign investors.

Some observers believe that the economically bruising unrest is finally at an end. On Friday, the BNP said it would accept the election results as free and fair and would take part in the new Parliament.

Another ally of Wajed’s, the leader of the country’s third-largest political party, has been in prison for the last five years after being convicted of corruption.

Former President Hussain Mohammed Ershad, who seized power in 1982 and was deposed eight years later, heads the Jatiya Party, which won 31 seats. The imprisoned former leader may be allowed a few hours out of his cell over the weekend to take the oath of office and talk strategy with other Jatiya leaders.

As a result of the vote, the Awami League is now ready to assume power after 21 years in the political wilderness.

Wajed, 48, is the daughter of the charismatic Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh to independence from Pakistan in 1971.

In the civil war that followed, in which more than 100,000 Bangladeshi guerrillas forced the Pakistani army to retreat into fortified enclaves, between 1 million and 3 million Bangladeshis died.

On Aug. 15, 1975, Rahman was killed along with most of his family by a group of majors in the Bangladeshi army. Wajed was abroad at the time.

As returns from the two-step election that concluded Wednesday made clear that the BNP was heading for defeat, the losers alleged that the elections had been rigged.

A 30-member group of election monitors from the Washington-based National Democratic Institute led by former U.S. Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.) called those allegations baseless.