A month ago, no one in Bangladesh could ever have imagined that the country’s authoritarian prime minister Sheikh Hasina could be forcibly removed from power and sent by military helicopter out of the country to India. Least of all Hasina herself, as her party, the Awami League, controlled the police, the judiciary, and all other state institutions. But that is exactly what happened today.
Sheikh Hasina, the aunt of the Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, had been in power for a 15-year stretch. Though the 2008 elections which first made her prime minister were free and fair, all three subsequent elections in 2014, 2018 and earlier this year were beset with allegations that they were rigged.
When she became prime minister in 2008 she was the darling of human rights organisations and the West, but as time went on she turned against the main opposition, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), arresting thousands and preventing them from functioning. Observers
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