The EconomistFebruary 10th 2018 Asia 272 to his mother’s second term, which saw
Bangladesh ranked as the world’s most
corrupt country five years running.
The verdict comesjust a week after
Sheikh Hasina announced that a parlia-
mentary election would be held in Decem-
ber. No one imagines she has any intention
of losing. In 2014 she put Mrs Zia under
house arrest and confined Mohammad Er-
shad, an ageing former dictator and leader
of the third-biggest party, to an army hospi-
tal. The courts barred Jamaat-e-Islami, a re-
ligious party allied to the BNP, from taking
part since the constitution defines Bangla-
desh as a secular state—another change the
ALhad pushed through parliament.
Yet the government would like the BNP
to take part this time to prevent the election
from looking as farcical as that of 2014,
when less than half the seats were con-
tested. The Election Commission says the
BNP’s participation is needed to hold a
meaningful vote. Even the AL’s otherwise
silent backer, India, has publicly called for
“participatory” polls.
In theory Mrs Zia has no choice: the law
stipulates that herparty mustparticipate
or be deregistered. The ruling party can
also offer inducements such as plum gov-
ernment jobs and the dropping of lawsuits.
The BNP, or parts of it, Dhaka’s chattering
classes assume, may prefer a respectable
block in parliament to political oblivion.
For the moment, however, the BNPis
unyielding. On February 3rd its top brass
affirmed that it will boycott the election
unless it is held under a neutral govern-
ment. As if to prove their point, the govern-
ment arrested more than 1,100 BNPleaders
and activists this week. It also put up check-
points to keep opposition protesters out of
the capital, Dhaka. BNPgrandees have
warned that the crackdown and convic-
tion are weakening moderates in the party
and emboldening those who advocate vi-
olence against the government.
That won’t scare Sheikh Hasina much.
She faced down bombings and arson at
polling stations in 2014. And she has been
careful to butter up the army, doubling its
size overthe past ten years and building it
lots of new bases. It is hard to see how she
might be dislodged. 7Bygone begumT
HE picturesque wine country of
Hawkes Bay is hardly a classic gang-
land. Tourists come here to ogle art deco
buildings or slurp merlot. But its less afflu-
ent suburbs are divided between bitter ri-
vals: Black Power and the Mongrel Mob,
New Zealand’s biggest gangs. This under-
world occasionally rears its head, with, say,
gunfire at a rugby game, or an assault out-
side a winery.
For a sleepy country, New Zealand has a
peculiar problem with gangs. Police count
over 5,300 members or “prospects” lining
up to join one of its 25 listed groups, which
together makes them a bigger force than
the army. Unlike counterparts in other
countries, they thrive in rural areas as well
as cities. Almost a quarter of people living
in the shabby bungalowsof Flaxmere, asuburb in Hawkes Bay, are said to be linked
to Black Power.
Bikers such as the Hell’s Angels have a
presence in New Zealand, but Black Power
and the Mongrel Mob have ruled the roost
for almost half a century. Their members
“stick out like dogs’ balls”, one admits, be-
cause they sew patches onto their clothes
and brand themselves with dense tattoos.
A clenched fist is the symbol of Black Pow-
er; a bulldog orthe Nazi salute “Sieg Heil”
are the marks of the Mongrels. Both gangs
are predominantly Maori. In all, police say
three-quarters ofthe country’smobsters
are Maori (they make up just 15% of the
population as a whole).
For decades the groups fought ruthless-
ly for turf, beat and raped women, and
pushed wannabe members into violentcrime to earn their stripes. When the econ-
omy slumped in the 1990s, mobsters sold
drugs from houses known as “tinnies” and
demanded protection money from other
criminals. Today prison officers say that
“ethnic gangs” work as methamphetamine
distributors for more organised biker
groups and foreign syndicates. They keep
the prisons in business, filling about a third
of cells and accounting for over 14% of all
murder charges, according to police.
Locking gang members up has arguably
exacerbated the problem, by turning jails
into recruitment grounds. Gang colours
and insignia are banned behind bars, but
“nine times out of ten” inmates will “turn
to a gang just for protection”, explains
Mane Adams, a heavily inked boss of Black
Power, who has served two sentences him-
self. Some leaders have taken to tattooing
the faces of prison recruits, to guarantee fe-
alty when they are free.
But if the authorities have not done
gangs much harm, methamphetamines
have. Mr Adams began campaigning
against the drug after a comrade disem-
bowelled himself in meth-induced psy-
chosis. A smattering of gang leaders have
tried to ban members from using them,
after seeing paranoid henchmen turn
against each other. Yet when officials con-
duct tests in gang-members’ homes, they
are still more likely to find traces of the sub-
stance than not.
Reform-minded gangsters swear that
they are cleaning up in other ways. Black
Power prohibitsthe lurid gang rapes that
once occurred on an almost weekly basis.
Leaders say they now criticise, rather than
joke about, domestic violence. Women
linked to the gangs claim their lives are
vastly improved. Street battles, too, have
grown less frequent.
By almost every measure, life is still
worse for Maoris than other New Zealand-
ers, but gangsters insist that, thanks to a
strong economy, criminality is no longer a
prerequisite for survival. Many Maoris
claim to join as much forwhanau, or fam-
ily, as for money, power or thrills. “People
have this idea we are all rapists and mur-
derers and methamphetamine cooks. But
not all gang members are criminals,” la-
ments Eugene Ryder, a leader of Black Pow-
er in Wellington. He requires his under-
lings to study or take full-time jobs.
Jarrod Gilbert, an academic, believes
that gang life has “fundamentally changed
from what it was”. Neil Campbell, who
heads the Maori division of the Correc-
tions Department, agrees that some “pro-
social” gang members really “do want bet-
ter for their children”. Perhaps the best
proof of the gangs’ rehabilitation is the rise
of new, more destructive rivals. The bling-
obsessed teenage members of the new
outfits are unpredictable and violent—just
as the mellowing members of the Mongrel
Mob and Black Power used to be. 7Gangs in New ZealandBigger than the army
HAWKES BAY
But they say they are cleaning up their act