BANGLADESH PARLIAMENT CAMPAIGN: IN KHALEDA ZIA

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 DHAKA 001326

SIPDIS

PASS TO PEACE CORPS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/18/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM BG
SUBJECT: BANGLADESH PARLIAMENT CAMPAIGN: IN KHALEDA ZIA
STRONGHOLD, SIGNS OF DISENCHANTMENT

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Classified By: Ambassador James F. Moriarty. Reasons: 1.4 (b) and (d)

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SUMMARY
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1. (C) Bogra District in northern Bangladesh is Ex-Prime
Minister Khaleda Zia's most formidable stronghold, but her
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) faces rumblings of
discontent. Although BNP candidates won all seven Bogra
constituencies in the 2001 Parliamentary elections, Zia
refused to renominate four who chaffed at her and her son
Tarique Rahman's absolute power within the party. Among those
nominated in their stead are unsavory characters, including a
reputed murderer and a reputed trafficker in persons.
Although BNP leaders believe the party is so strong in Bogra
those new candidates will win, local media and independent
political observers are not so sure. They speculated
candidates from the rival Awami League could win one and
possibly two seats. The loss of even a single seat in the
district would be a stinging rebuke to the BNP and its
chairperson.

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BOGRA: THE BNP HEARTLAND
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2. (U) On the western shore of the wide Jamuna River in
northwestern Bangladesh sits Bogra District, the heartland of
the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The district's favorite son
was Ziaur Rahman, founder of the BNP and former President of
Bangladesh. After his assassination in 1981, Bogra's
political loyalty transferred to his wife, Khaleda Zia, who
took over as chairperson of the party. She ran for Parliament
in two Bogra constituencies during the last election in 2001,
obliterating both her Awami League opponents; in one
constituency she received roughly four times the votes of her
opponent. (Note: Candidates can run in up to three
constituencies per election; if they win more than one the
other seats are filled in a by-election. End note.) She is
running in the same two constituencies in the December 29
Parliamentary elections and is expected to win by landslides
again. During a campaign swing through the district on
December 17, she repeatedly mentioned her special attachment
to Bogra in speeches at several large political rallies.


3. (C) The connection between her eldest son, Tarique Rahman,
and Bogra is particularly strong. As BNP senior joint
secretary general, Tarique made weekly trips to Bogra that
some viewed as preparatory work for launching his own bid for
a Parliamentary seat. (Note: Tarique is not running in the
December elections because of a political deal under which he
left jail, where he had been held on corruption allegations,
for London for medical treatment. End note.) As son of
Khaleda Zia and a senior party leader, Tarique far eclipsed
the Bogra members of Parliament. The many major development
projects in Bogra during the 2001-2006 BNP administration --
including initiating natural gas delivery, widening key roads
and building a medical college and hospital -- are attributed
to Tarique's influence. The walls of BNP headquarters in
Bogra's district capital are plastered with posters of
Tarique, holding a dove about to fly away, next to the
slogan: "Bangladesh will be waiting for you."

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REFORMISTS ARE OUT...
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4. (C) Those strong personal ties to the district no doubt
emboldened Zia and her loyalists to act against four members
of the 2001 Parliament from Bogra who had crossed them. All
four won by comfortable margins in the last election and
were, in the words of prominent local civil society leader
Mohammad Harun-or-Rashid, "really good members of Parliament.
They were against corruption." Among the former MPs the party
did not renominate were Rezaul Bari Dina, a soft-spoken
former BNP Parliament whip who has been a frequent Embassy
contact; Ziaul Haq Molla, a medical doctor elected to
Parliament four times; and G.M. Siraj, a prominent
businessman also elected four times. They were considered BNP
reformists, a loose-knit group of lawmakers who favored a
less autocratic party. This was the main reason they were

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denied nominations, according to BNP Bogra District President
Mohammad Rezaul Karim Badsha. "They betrayed the party
chairwoman," he told PolOff.


5. (C) During a December 15-18 trip to Bogra, PolOff met
Siraj at Food Village, his hyper-busy travelers' rest stop on
the main road to Dhaka. He proudly noted he did not go to see
Khaleda Zia to curry favor after her release from jail on
bail in September. (Note: Zia was in jail on multiple
accusations of graft. End note.) "I want democracy to prevail
in the party," he explained. Siraj also criticized Tarique
for acting like royalty and surrounding himself with
lickspittles. "When Tarique came into politics we could not
adjust," Siraj said of the reformists. "We were very
uncomfortable."


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...SCOUNDRELS ARE IN
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6. (C) Although Tarique was in London, Siraj and others
believed he was involved in the replacement of the reformist
ex-MPs with candidates of sullied reputation. "Tarique loves
notorious guys," Siraj said. The most notorious of the
replacement nominees is Mohammad Shokrana, whose businesses
include the premier Bogra hotel, grain import and foreign
currency exchange. He is best known, however, for reputedly
terrorizing Bogra as an Awami League youth wing leader during
the 1970s, when Bangladesh first became independent. The
respected newspaper The Daily Star in a December 13 article
quoted unnamed sources as saying Shokrana was involved in
more than 30 murders; the journalist who authored the report
told PolOff that Shokrana had been convicted on numerous
charges, most dating from the 1970s, including murder.
"People are scared of him due to his previous background,"
said civil society leader Mohammad Harun-or-Rashid (protect).
(Note: In a brief meeting at his office in the Hotel Naz
Garden, Shokrana told PolOff his arrests had been under a
martial-law government. He claimed the President of the
subsequent democratically-elected government pardoned him.
Shokrana also acknowledged being jailed by the Caretaker
Government for what The Daily Star journalist Hasibur Rahman
Bilu described as hoarding relief goods. He called the recent
charges an "injustice." End note.) Badsha, the local BNP
president, professed to be ignorant of Shokrana's earlier
misdeeds; anyway, he said, whatever Shokrana did as an Awami
League youth leader decades ago was not the BNP's
responsibility.


7. (C) Two other BNP candidates in Bogra, AKM Hafizur Rahman
and Jane Alam Khoka, have checkered pasts as well. Bari Dina,
the former BNP Parliamentary whip who lost the nomination to
Hafizur, contemptuously called him "Heathrow man" for
reputedly being caught at the London airport in 1996 while
trying to smuggle up to 16 Bangladeshis who were on his
flight. Local journalists and civil society leaders were
familiar with the allegations. Rabiul Karim Helal, secretary
of the Fair Election Monitoring Alliance (FEMA) in Bogra,
said he believed Hafizur "definitely" attempted to traffic
Bangladeshis through Heathrow and claimed the candidate had
engaged in similar activities earlier. Meanwhile, longtime
labor leader Khoka was arrested during the 2002 "Operation
Clean Heart" anti-crime campaign on allegations of clashing
with the combined forces but, according to Bilu, was not
convicted. A January 24, 2008, article in The Daily Star said
the Anti-Corruption Commission filed a case against Khoka and
his wife on charges of "amassing huge wealth through illegal
means." In an interview, Khoka told PolOff the investigation
ultimately sputtered. He said he was set free after nearly 13
months in jail.

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BOGRA PEOPLE MAY NOT RUBBER-STAMP PARTY CANDIDATES
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8. (C) PolOff spoke to several political observers in Bogra
who argued both Shokrana and Khoka faced tough contests, in
large part because of their sullied reputations. It may not
be coincidence that during her one-day barnstorm trip to
Bogra on December 17, Khaleda Zia held two major rallies in
the two candidates' constituencies to bolster their

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campaigns. Shokrana is facing veteran Awami League candidate
Mohammad Abdul Mannan who is making a fourth and final
attempt to enter Parliament. Mannan is well known to local
voters and received nearly 75,000 votes in 2001 compared to
120,000 for the BNP candidate. Both Shokrana and Mannan
receive support from groups of thugs who already have faced
off in at least one minor clash, according to FEMA official
Karim Helal. Their Bogra-1 constituency includes tens of
thousands of people who live in remote islands in the Jamuna
River, making the race especially prone to intimidation and
ballot fraud, he added.


9. (C) Khoka is running against Awami League candidate
Habibur Rahman, a former police superintendent, in the
Bogra-5 constituency last represented by Siraj. An
independent candidate who came in second place to Siraj in
2001 is supporting the Awami League candidate, local
observers said. So too, they say, is Siraj, who received more
than 185,000 votes in 2001. While Siraj told PolOff he would
not betray the BNP, he also acknowledged he refused a party
request to campaign for Khoka. He also praised the Awami
League candidate as a "very good" man who was different from
Bangladesh's typically corrupt police.

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COMMENT: DID THE BNP GO TO FAR?
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10. (C) Bogra is supposed to be such a solid BNP stronghold
that candidates themselves don't matter much because people
automatically vote the party line. That proposition may be
strongly tested December 29 in some of the district's seven
constituencies. If nothing else, an Awami League victory in
at least one Bogra constituency would be an embarrassing
personal rebuke to Khaleda Zia and her son, Tarique Rahman.
It also would be a forceful message that at least some voters
who have long supported Ziaur Rahman and his family were more
interested in a change at the helm than in perpetuating his
family's political dynasty.
MORIARTY