When Iajuddin Ahmed, Bangladesh's president, declared an army-backed state of emergency on January 11th and cancelled the election due on January 22nd, neither he nor the foreign governments quietly cheering him on used the word "coup". Yet that is what it looks like. The army, in the tradition of "guardian coups" from Fiji to Thailand, has stepped in with the usual list of apparently noble goals. The interim government it is backing will enable credible elections, clean up the country's extremely politicised civil service, fight corruption, fix the country's power crisis and keep food prices in check-and then return to the barracks.
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