Bangladesh: Election amid anarchy

HAROON HABIB

The ruling Awami League wins an election marred by boycott and violence. But the only solution to a looming political crisis is another round of elections with full political participation sooner rather than later.

AMID unprecedented violence, Bangladesh finally held its much-debated 10th parliamentary elections on January 5, allowing the ruling Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina, to form the new government. However, the major opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which boycotted the elections and tried to resist the electoral process, continues to question the legitimacy of the mandate.

The Bangladesh Election Commission has declared the Awami League winner in 139 out of the 147 seats to which elections were held. Having won 127 seats uncontested, the ruling party has 231 of the 300 seats, a clear three-fourths majority in parliament. The Jatiya Party, which won 33 seats, is likely to be the main opposition. The Workers’ Party won six seats, the Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) five and the Tarikat Federation one. The 13 independent candidates who won are mostly rebels from the ruling party who defeated its official candidates.

In one of the most violent elections Bangladesh has ever had, opposition activists torched hundreds of polling centres, destroyed ballot papers and boxes, killed or injured polling officials and attacked voters. Polling was cancelled at 540 centres out of 18,000, that is 3 per cent of the centres.

In her post-election press conference, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked Khaleda Zia, the leader of the rightist-Islamist opposition alliance, to give up terrorism in the name of democratic movement and discard the Jamaat-e-Islami, which had violently opposed the country’s independence from Pakistan. She said she was ready to go in for a mid-term election that would be fully participatory if the opposition agreed to this.

Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad said the holding of the election against all odds was in itself a big achievement. According to Election Commission figures, around 41.5 million people, or 40 per cent of the electorate, cast their votes. Violence, however, had its impact on the turnout. With their victory assured, even Awami League supporters, except die-hard ones, stayed away from the polling booths.

The turnout was low in the northern and western strongholds of the BNP and the Jamaat, but in many areas, including the Greater Chittagong, Dhaka and Barisal regions, it was remarkably high, according to the Election Commission.

Political legitimacy
In the highly controversial elections of February 15, 1996, under the Khaleda Zia government, which Awami League, in the opposition then, boycotted, the turnout was only about 20 per cent. However, the question of the legality of that parliament never arose. It was this parliament that passed the 13th Constitution amendment Bill incorporating the “non-party caretaker system”. The BNP demanded that the 2013 parliamentary elections be held under a non-party caretaker government, a system the outgoing parliament reversed. Though the new parliament may be controversial in the eyes of the parties that did not join the election or failed to stop it, observers say in no way can it be termed “illegitimate”. However, its political legitimacy may be questioned because it was not fully participatory.

While the Awami League expressed satisfaction with the election, the BNP and the Jamaat called it “a farce”. However, a South Asian group of electoral management bodies observed that the turnout was “good” in some polling booths while in some others it was “not so high”. Some local observers said the voter turnout was “very low” as many candidates had not tried to encourage voters to exercise their franchise and because of massive violence.

Constitutional requirement

In Bangladesh, holding of the election before January 24 this year had become a constitutional necessity. But the opposition not only boycotted it but also resorted to extreme violence to resist the democratic exercise. As many as 100 people died in election-related violence across the country while more than 500 people died in violent protests organised by the BNP and the Jamaat in 2013 in a bid to dislodge the government.

Bangladesh has seen many violent political upheavals in the past 34 years. But the violence unleashed by the BNP and the Jamaat this time has been the worst. In the most anarchist manner, 531 educational institutions, where polling centres were housed, were either burnt or damaged. These include primary schools, high schools, colleges and madrassas.

The elections also served as a grim reminder to the religious minority of the brutal treatment its members received 43 years ago from marauding Pakistani forces and their local cohorts. Homes and property of Hindus were attacked on the assumption that they had voted for the ruling party or ignored the directive to boycott the elections. Hundreds of houses were burnt or damaged, and a large number of Hindus fled their homes. The attacks were carried out systematically by the activists of the BNP and the Jamaat.

The Jamaat, as also the BNP, was opposed to the landmark war crimes trials conducted to bring to justice the perpetrators of mass murder and rape in the 1971 war of liberation. The judicial process, which a sovereign state cannot relinquish, also alarmed Pakistan, whose National Assembly recently endorsed a resolution condemning the execution of Jamaat leader Quader Mollah, who had been convicted by Bangladesh’s apex court for war crimes in 1971.

The political crisis deepened when the BNP’s demand for a caretaker government to oversee the election was integrated with the Jamaat’s demand to relinquish the war crimes trials. When Khaleda Zia virtually took the leadership of both BNP and the Jamaat, it took the nation by surprise as to why the former Prime Minister had to risk whatever liberal image her party had. Her willing leadership of the entire “anti-liberation forces”, or the “neo-Pakistanis” as they are called, has alarmed a large segment of the population, among them even critics of the Awami League.

The January 5 election was thus seen also as an exercise to check the possible rebirth of religious terrorism and as a deterrent to the growth of “neo-Pakistani extremists” on Bangladeshi soil. The Islamists, through violent means, were apparently trying to capitalise on the election to make a comeback.

Violent turn
There was no guarantee that the Khaleda Zia-led alliance would have joined the election even if it was rescheduled. The ruling party tried to negotiate with the opposition to find common ground which was acceptable to all parties. Sheikh Hasina herself invited Khaleda Zia for discussion, but the latter refused.

The international community led by the United States also tried in vain to mediate between the two leaders to bring them to the negotiating table. Diplomatic efforts were also on by U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Oscar Fernandez-Taranco.

The BNP-Jamaat alliance not only refused to participate in the election without a “non-party caretaker government” but vowed to foil it by any means. It declared a countrywide hartal and blockade, which continued for months. The Jamaat and its militant students’ wing, Islami Chaatra Shibir, resorted to wanton destruction and killing.

The Jamaat-Shibir cadre, reportedly in collaboration with the outlawed Hizb ut-Tahrir and other radical groups, struck terror all over. They targeted buses, trucks, cars, rickshaws, autorickshaws and cargo vehicles using crude bombs, gunpowder, gasoline, petroleum, stones, bricks, batons and other weapons. All modes of public transport, government offices, businesses and industries were attacked indiscriminately. The armed cadre also cut more than 25,000 large trees, set fire to over 10,000 vehicles, and attacked dozens of minority religious institutions. The violence affected the nation’s economy.

Bangladesh has long been divided into two radically opposite political and ideological camps, “pro-liberation” and “anti-liberation” or “neo-Pakistanis”. Though out of power for more than seven years, the BNP and the Jamaat in the meanwhile had won many local elections, including major city corporations, and a few parliamentary byelections.

But Khaleda Zia was hell-bent on reviving the non-party caretaker system to hold the election and on forcing the government to amend the Constitution. The outgoing Parliament had revoked the system following a landmark verdict of the Bangladesh Supreme Court which declared the non-party caretaker system undemocratic and unconstitutional. Having scrapped the caretaker provision through a constitutional amendment, it was impossible for Sheikh Hasina to bring back something that would demoralise her party before a crucial election.

In the midst of the political stand-off, Sheikh Hasina offered an olive branch to the opposition to encourage her opponents to join the election—she offered them Cabinet berths in an “all party government” that would supervise the election. The opposition rejected the offer. Therefore, the government says, it had no other alternative but to go in for the election.

International reaction
The U.S.-backed international community sided with the anti-election grouping, lending vital support to the Jamaat and the BNP. The E.U. and the U.S. have repeatedly requested everyone to not resort to violence, but without any specifics.

Terming the continuing violence surrounding the elections “unacceptable”, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked the political parties to resume “meaningful dialogue” for an inclusive political process. Instead of toeing the U.S. line in debunking the elections as “not at all credible”, the U.N. chose to lambast the unprecedented violence that left at least 22 people dead on the day of polling. Ban Ki-moon also called upon all parties to exercise restraint and ensure an environment conducive to protecting the people’s right of assembly and expression.

Since 1996, when Khaleda Zia was forced to step down barely a few months after a “farcical” election earlier that year, caretaker governments have conducted elections in Bangladesh. (Two general elections were held in Bangladesh in 1996, the first on February 15, which the BNP won following an Awami League boycott. After that parliament was dissolved, another election was held on June 12, in which the Awami League won.)

The U.S. found nothing wrong with the 1996 February elections and, in fact, sent 48 observers to monitor it. But it found this round of elections “not credible enough” to send observers to monitor them. The E.U. and the Commonwealth too did not send observers.

India, which shares a long border with Bangladesh, differed with the U.S. on the understanding of Bangladesh’s problems. It said that the elections were a “constitutional requirement” which shall be left to the people of Bangladesh and that the democratic processes “must be allowed to take their own course”.

The United Kingdom, France and Germany, too, asked the new government and all political parties to engage in a dialogue to find a path forward to holding fresh national elections. They urged the political leadership to do everything to halt the violence and intimidation, especially against the minorities.

Over the years, the Jamaat-e-Islami has organised itself as a cadre force that is inimical to the interests of the Bangladesh state, in line with its philosophy of 1971. It cannot contest elections as it has been deregistered and most of its key leaders are either convicted or being tried in the war crimes tribunals.

The Islamist party has no future unless it ousts the Awami League from power by all means and gets the war crimes trials foiled. The BNP, which emerged from the cantonment, has become fully dependent on the Jamaat, whose support base will come to roughly 4 per cent of the national votes.

There is no indication that the coalition of the BNP and the Jamaat will cease its violent campaign. With powerful supporters such as the U.S. and also Pakistan, it will continue its violence against what it calls an “illegal” government.

Bangladesh will surely get a legitimate parliament and a legal government, but it will possibly have no respite from violence and political turmoil. The only way to avoid instability is a meaningful dialogue among the stakeholders for an inclusive election sooner rather than later.

First appeared in the Frontline magazine, Print Edition: February 7, 2014

Haroon Habib, a liberation war veteran is correspondent for The Hindu newspaper. He is General Secretary of Bangladesh Sector Commander's Forum

BANGLADESH Battle of the Begums

S. BINODKUMAR SINGH

Paving the way for the constitution of an "all-party" Interim Government to oversee the next Parliamentary Elections, all 52 ministers in the Awami League (AL)-led Begum Sheikh Hasina Wajed Government submitted their resignations on November 11, 2013. 

Subsequently, on November 21, 2013, a 29-member Interim Government was formed under Prime Minister Hasina. 28 other Ministers (including 21 Cabinet Ministers and seven State Ministers) were also inducted. All the 28 ministers are members of the Grand Alliance which was formed under AL leadership in December 2008, after the last Parliamentary Elections. While 20 Ministers have been re-inducted, eight new faces, including Anisul Islam Mahmud, Rahul Amin Hawlader, Rawshan Ershad, Mujibul Hague Chunnu, Salma Islam of the Jatiya Party (JP); Amir Hossain Amu and Tofail Ahmed of the AL; and Rashed Khan Menon of the Workers Party (WP).

Hasina later gave an assurance that the Ministers of the Interim Government would not make any policy decisions, and would only engage in 'routine work' during the election period, adding, "I want to assure you [people and the opposition] that the elections will be held in a free and fair manner. I urge the opposition leader to join the elections and the people will decide who assumes power." Prime Minister Hasina also stated that President Abdul Hamid had advised her to lead the Interim Government.

This move, however, has been vehemently opposed by the Begum Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the 18-party opposition alliance she heads, which includes the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and other Islamist radicals. The alliance has been demanding a non-party Caretaker Government (CG) on the pattern of arrangements under which earlier elections were held. In June 2011, Parliament had abolished the non-party CG system, declaring the 15-year-old constitutional provision illegal.

While the BNP-led alliance has opposed the formation of the Interim Government and is planning its strategy of response, the Election Commission (EC), on November 25, 2013, announced that the 10^th General Election would be held on January 5, 2014. Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed made the announcement in an address to the nation on state radio and television and appealed to all political parties to contest the election, assuring them of taking all necessary measures, including deployment of the armed forces, to ensure a free and fair election. According to the schedule, the deadline for submission of nomination papers is December 2, 2013.

Since the AL led-Government had completed its tenure on October 24, 2013, Article 123 of the Constitution of Bangladesh required general elections to be held within 90 days, that is, before January 24, 2014.

On November 25, 2013, the Opposition announced a 48-hour countrywide blockade from November 26, 2013. In a press briefing arranged minutes after the announcement of the Election schedule, BNP acting Secretary General, Mirza Fakhrul Islam, called on the EC to postpone the polls schedule until a consensus on the arrangements for a non-party CG was reached among the political parties. BNP spokesman Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir declared, "We reject the election schedule."

Stunned by the announcement and realizing that their attempts to obstruct the announcement of the polls had failed, the Opposition alliance intensified its 'street protests' unleashing wave of disruptive demonstrations and violence in the hope that this would force the Government to rethink its position. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), as many as 25 people, including 20 civilians, four JeI and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) cadres and one trooper of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) have been killed in street violence since the announcement of the poll schedule (all data till December 1, 2013).

The present disturbances, however, are only an intensification of near-continuous disruptions since January 21, 2013, when the first verdict in the trials for the War Crimes of 1971 was announced. Since then, the country has recorded at least 267 fatalities, including 157 civilians, 96 JeI-ICS cadres and 14 Security Force (SF) personnel, in violence unleashed by the Islamist formations backed by the BNP-JeI combine.

Meanwhile, on November 26, 2013, the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), at a Press Conference at its central office in Dhaka, and the Democratic Left Alliance (DLA), a combine of eight left-leaning political parties, at another press conference at the Nirmal Sen Auditorium in Dhaka city, rejected the announced election schedule. The CPB President Mujahidul Islam Selim declared, "CPB is rejecting the election schedule and will not take part in any one-sided election." Saiful Huq, the DLA coordinator, also rejected the election schedule on the grounds that the process would encourage a 'unilateral election'. Similarly, at a Press Vonference in Dhaka city's Mukti Bhaban on November 28, 2013, Socialist Party of Bangladesh (SPB) General Secretary Khalequzzaman asserted, "Since we believe that a one-sided election under this EC will escalate the present crises rather than resolve it, the CPB-SPB will not take part in the election."

On November 28, 2013, amid fresh political violence and uncertainty about the upcoming General Election, the EC conceded that the January 5 polls could be postponed if consensus is forged by the country's feuding political parties. CEC Kazi Rakibuddin Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed, when asked if the panel could revise the poll schedule, observed, "Everything is possible if they (political parties) reach a settlement in the people's interest."

Any consensus between Bangladesh's polarized political parties is, however, highly unlikely. Shahriar Kabir, a war crimes researcher, thus noted, "The body language of Khaleda made it clear that she is not interested in a resolution and the reason is she is dictated to by Jamaat-e-Islami, which wants to push the country towards a civil war." On the other hand, the Sheikh Hasina-led Government is determined to hold elections on time. While giving an introductory speech at the meeting of the Awami League Parliamentary Board (ALPB) at her Dhanmondi office in Dhaka city on November 28, 2013, Sheikh Hasina urged the people to be prepared to vote, saying that the next parliamentary elections would be held at the "right time" and the people would elect their representatives according to their wishes. Referring to Khaleda Zia, she declared that the Opposition leader was "killing innocent people in the streets" and pushing the country into complete anarchy, even while she kept herself aloof from the street-agitation and lived a "lavish life".

Bangladesh had witnessed a remarkably violence-free poll on December 29, 2008, when the AL secured a landslide victory, with 230 of a total of 300 seats in the Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament). The AL subsequently formed the Grand Alliance along with the JP, which accounted for 27 seats in the Jatiya Sangsad, and with 'others' who accounted for five seats. The BNP, which had won 193 seats in the 2001 Elections, collapsed to a strength of just 29 seats, while its principal ally, JeI, was reduced from a strength of 17 seats to two.

With the AL Government hitting the Islamist formations decisively during its tenure, the Islamists and their BNP backers are determined to make one last attempt to derail the polls. Inevitably, in what is being viewed as a virtual battle for survival on both sides of the political spectrum, Bangladesh is heading towards a violent election. The BNP-JeI combine has already made its intention clear, taking the fight into the streets, and rejecting the very possibility of any political discourse for consensus formation. Unsurprisingly, the Sheikh Hasina Government has also hunkered down, to take all necessary measures to enforce a peaceful polling process.

First published in the South Asia Intelligence Review, Weekly Assessments & Briefings, Volume 12, No. 22, December 2, 2013

S. Binodkumar Singh is Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

The Queenmaker of Bangladesh

TAHMIMA ANAM

Call Bangladesh the land of the resurrected. Here, a dictator can be overthrown, disgraced and imprisoned, and still make a comeback.

More than two decades after being ousted, Hussain Mohammed Ershad is now being called the “Queenmaker.” Thanks to recent political maneuvering, he is in a prime position to tip the scales between the two main contenders in the general election to be held in January: Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, and Khaleda Zia, former prime minister, leader of the opposition and Ms. Hasina’s longtime foe.

Mr. Ershad came to power in 1983, as the head of a military-backed government. By late 1990, after nearly a decade without free and fair elections, a massive popular uprising — led by the two most powerful opposition parties, the Awami League (Ms. Hasina’s party) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (Ms. Zia’s) — was putting pressure on Mr. Ershad to step down. His government fell after the army withdrew its support. Within weeks, Mr. Ershad was in jail on corruption charges.

More than 20 years later, Mr. Ershad’s influence is on the rise again. Though Ms. Hasina and Ms. Zia once cooperated in the movement to restore democracy, they have become bitter opponents in the intervening years, as power has shifted back and forth between the Awami League and the B.N.P. Now, on the eve of another election, Mr. Ershad is the accidental arbiter in the enduring rivalry between the co-architects of his downfall.

Bangladesh is deeply divided. Ms. Hasina’s record in many areas — development, infrastructure, health care, the trial of war criminals from the 1971 liberation war — boasts important victories, and those go far beyond anything Ms. Zia achieved when she was prime minister, in 1991-1996 and 2001-2006.

But Ms. Hasina’s decision to stand by allegedly corrupt ministers and her consistent repression of her political opponents have damaged her standing. Especially controversial, Ms. Hasina has scrapped the so-called caretaker government that had overseen national elections since Mr. Ershad’s fall. In its place she has appointed a special election-time cabinet formally open to all parties and placed herself at its helm.

Ms. Zia looks even worse. Her last term in office was marred by allegations of corruption (some involving her immediate family), and she reigned over an unprecedented spate of violence by religious extremists, including the Islamic terrorist Bangla Bhai. While in the opposition, Ms. Zia has been obstinately uncooperative. She has boycotted Parliament since losing the election in 2008. Now she is threatening to boycott the January election unless the caretaker framework is reinstated. In the meantime, she has called a series of strikes and demonstrations that have brought the country to a standstill. She has refused to join Ms. Hasina’s interim cabinet.

Mr. Ershad, for his part, has accepted to join the new cabinet. He has also agreed to run in the election, a move that will lend the process the credibility that Ms. Hasina badly wants and Ms. Zia is trying to deny her. And if Ms. Zia does stick to her boycott, the Jatiya Party of Mr. Ershad will likely become the country’s new main opposition party, vastly increasing its current influence.

And so it is that while the two leading ladies of Bangladeshi politics quarrel, Mr. Ershad’s clout is growing. In fact, it is almost tempting to forget the dark spots in his past. Mr. Ershad’s rule is sometimes looked upon as a dictatorship of the benign sort. The 1982 coup that brought him to power was bloodless (conveniently, his predecessor had already been assassinated). And the years of democracy that have followed his downfall have been tainted by so much corruption, cronyism and repression that his regime can seem innocuous by comparison.

But nostalgia underestimates the damage the man did to Bangladesh. Mr. Ershad institutionalized corruption on a large scale, undertaking building projects that enriched him and his cronies. In 1988, his government amended the Constitution, ignoring its foundational secular principles to declare Islam the country’s state religion. The return to politics of this dictator, whose fall was so hard-won, sends a message of impunity.

Democracy in Bangladesh has taken another hit, in other words. Politicians are unaccountable. The electoral process is sketchy. Yes, Bangladeshis have held on to the right to vote, but it is, in effect, the right to vote only for warring factions determined to destroy each other.

A few weeks ago, in a bid to convince her to end the strikes, Ms. Hasina made a telephone call to Ms. Zia. The transcript of the conversation, which was circulated online, reads like a parody.

Ms. Hasina: “We don’t want to quarrel.”

Ms. Zia: “You are quarrelling.”

Ms. Hasina: “You are the only one doing the talking. You are not allowing me to talk.”

Ms. Zia: “Why would I do that? You are asking questions, I am replying.”

Ms. Hasina: “I am not getting a chance to speak.”

Amid that bickering, Ershad doesn’t need to do much talking at all.

Published in The NewYork Times, November 26, 2013

A version of this op-ed appears in print on November 27, 2013, in The International New York Times.

Tahmima Anam is a writer and anthropologist, and the author of the novel “A Golden Age.”

Gearing up for a change of guard

SUBIR BHAUMIK

 

INDIA HAS, in recent weeks, formally hosted two senior leaders from Bangladesh - both from the opposition parties. First it was the country's former ruler HM Ershad and then the former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, who was hosted for a whole week. Both met top Indian leaders and expressed satisfaction after the discussions. These discussions may not solve any of the bilateral issues that were discussed - but India's hosting of two opposition figures from Bangladesh at this juncture seems to be significant.

In Dhaka, the political class puts this down to "serious doubts" in the Indian establishment about the ruling Awami League's chances of coming back to power. Since democracy returned to Bangladesh after the ouster of Ershad's military regime, the Awami League and the BNP has turns, winning elections every five years. So a change of guard next year may not surprise anyone, except those who feel the Awami League's massive mandate in December 2008 may have helped it consolidate its position in a nation that was largely frustrated with Islamist excesses, murderous vindictive politics and rotten governance. That has not happened - and for various reasons. Poor leadership, corruptions scams, the needless spat with micro-credit guru Mohammed Yunus - and much more.

But some say the  Awami League has been badly let down by India, after all it has done for its large neighbour. In a country where agriculture is still the occupation of most, water is an emotive issue. India's failure to deliver on the Teesta Water Sharing Treaty has hit Hasina's government below the belt. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was forced to back off on the issue due to the sudden opposition of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. This has become a national embarrassment for Singh and India - but it has become favourite ammunition for attacking Hasina back home.

The same is true about the much-awaited, but the much-delayed, Land Boundary  Agreement involving the exchange of enclaves. Those who follow India's murky coalition politics may appreciate why Singh's hands are somewhat tied, but most in Bangladesh, specially those who gun for the Awami League, have a huge issue to run down the party as an "Indian stooge" that has got nothing for all it has done for India.

The present Awami League government has gone after Islamic radicals and separatist rebels from northeast India with a vengeance after it came to power. Most of the top guns of the northeastern insurgency, except the ULFA's elusive military wing chief Paresh Barua who perhaps fled Bangladesh at the right time, have been nabbed and handed over to the Indian authorities. Some of these leaders have been forced to start dialogues with Delhi after announcing ceasefires.

Bangladesh's security services have started massive operations against Pakistan-engineered operations to use Bangladesh for pushing in huge quantities of Indian counterfeit currency. Hasina's government is also ready to concede to most Indian demands from transit to use of Chittagong port - all that augurs well for India's northeast. But in diplomacy, one has to get something to be able to give something. This is where Hasina has been left high and dry and that, in no small measure, is contributing to the possible erosion of the Awami League's popularity.

As a major regional power, it is natural for India to anticipate a change of guard in a neighbouring country and prepare for it. But why not do it discreetly? The way Begum Zia and Ershad were hosted in Delhi has only convinced Bangladeshis that India has written off the Awami League's chances in the next parliament polls and so is preparing for the inevitable. It was natural for a trusted ally like Hasina to expect a payback from India, Teesta et al, in the run-up  to her poll campaign. The last thing she could have bargained for are the current signals from Delhi that India is preparing to change sides if she does not win.

First published in The Hindustan Times, November 18, 2012

Subir Bhaumik, a veteran journalist, is a Senior Fellow with the Kolkata-based Centre for Study in International Relations and Development