Bangladesh: Conditions Conducive to a Coup?

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia will turn over power on Oct. 27 to a caretaker government charged with overseeing Bangladesh's national election, scheduled for January 2007. The interim government will be led by former Chief Justice K.M. Hasan, whom the opposition Awami League has deemed unacceptably close to Zia's Bangladeshi Nationalist Party (BNP). The BNP will not be able to win an honest election, and will thus have to rely on extra-constitutional measures to retain power, which could lead to the traditional Bangladeshi power transfer: the military coup.