ALL IN THE FAMILY: PARTY NOMINATES SPOUSES OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DHAKA 001327 SIPDIS PASS TO PEACE CORPS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/21/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM BG SUBJECT: ALL IN THE FAMILY: PARTY NOMINATES SPOUSES OF JAILED POLITICIANS Classified By: Ambassador: James F. Moriarty. Reasons: 1.4 (b) and (d) -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) The spouse of a notorious Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) politician convicted for arson and looting told POLOFF on 12/16 she was running for Parliament to hold the seat for her jailed husband. The wife of former Deputy Minister for Land Ruhul Kuddus Talukdar Dulu said once her husband left jail she would resign to allow him to reenter Parliament. In supporting the scheme, the BNP clearly signaled its election manifesto promise to promote good governance was little more than window dressing. -------------- THE MISSING CANDIDATE -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Missing from the campaign for the Natore-2 seat in Parliament is the previous winner, former Deputy Minister for Land Dulu. A local court in July 2007 sentenced him to eight years in prison for guiding and abetting arson to houses in three villages, according to a report in the respected English-language newspaper The Daily Star. The verdict, said the newspaper, sentenced Dulu to five years for arson, one year for looting, one year for rioting with deadly weapons and one year for directly guiding and abetting the crimes. In separate reporting the newspaper raised allegations linking Dulu to the rise of Bangla Bhai, one of Bangladesh's most notorious Islamic terrorists. The report claimed a longstanding link between the two men until Bangla Bhai's arrest in 2006; the terrorist was hanged with other leaders of the Jaamatul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB) a year later. -------------- THE REPLACEMENT CANDIDATE -------------- ¶3. (C) A handful of spouses of convicted former BNP lawmakers are running for the seats their husbands once held. Dulu's wife, Sabina Yasmin Chhabi, told POLOFF in a brief meeting December 16 outside a Natore auto parts store that local party leaders urged her to run in her husband's stead. She said the party decided that should she win the seat and Dulu subsequently be freed, she would resign to allow her husband of 19 years to reenter Parliament in a by-election. Local party leaders who surrounded her as she described the plan did not contradict her. ¶4. (SBU) Chhabi described her campaign platform strictly as carrying on her husband's work for the constituency and seeking to get him released from jail. "He was working for the people, and now the people think he is in jail unjustly," she said. When asked if she had a political agenda of her own, she thought a minute and then said, "I want to keep the people of Natore happy." She appeared the political novice when she later addressed a group of about 100 campaign workers at the start of her day's activities. Speaking for only three minutes, she had the acting district party president whisper in her ear several times to remind her what to say. ¶5. (SBU) POLOFF subsequently accompanied her on two campaign stops, including one at Hobidpur village a few miles outside Natore city. Dressed in a simple gray sari, a shock of hair falling free of the pink patterned shawl covering her head, Chhabi stepped out of her blue Mitsubishi Lancer and gave a slow, regal wave to the approximately 100 women and children awaiting her visit. She quickly plunged into the crowd and told her tale of personal suffering since her husband was jailed nearly two years earlier. She urged the women to help free her husband by voting for her. She appeared to have a sympathetic audience; at least two of the women who crowded around her started to cry. But a second year college student, Shahin Alam, who watched the event from a nearby bridge, said he thought Dulu would have been a stronger canadidate because of all he had personally done to develop the area. -------------- --- COMMENT: CANDIDACY HELPS ILLUMINATE BNP PRIORITY DHAKA 00001327 002 OF 002 -------------- --- ¶6. (C) Several weeks earlier in Dhaka, BNP Joint Secretary General Nazrul Islam Khan told POLOFF that in a few constituencies the party had no viable candidates other than spouses of convicted party leaders who were barred from running for reelection themselves. Perhaps more to the point, the spouses were seen as the candidates with the best chance of winning; they also could be expected to resign their seats should their spouses later become eligible to return to Parliament in a by-election. The nomination of Chhabi and other spouses clearly illuminates BNP priorities: The campaign pledge to fight corruption takes a distant back seat to winning and preserving the political careers of tainted leaders. MORIARTY