A civic worker tears down election posters on a street corner, a day after Bangladesh’s parliamentary elections, in Dhaka on January 8. — Agence France-Presse/Indranil Mukherjee
by M. Serajul Islam 18 January 2024
THE chief election commissioner claimed that the voter turnout of the January 7 general election was 41.9 per cent. The majority of the people differed based on what they witnessed real time on WhatsApp, Facebook and smartphones and the information they gathered on social media. The international media concluded that the turnout was low and a silent rejection of the surreal ways the election was held with the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, locked and its leaders and supporters jailed.
A British tourist who saw the election first-hand said that he had seen the North Korean model in the Bangladesh election. He did not go into figures or details and yet hit the bull’s eye in assessing the election.
He did not have to spell anything more about the election — the voter turnout, lack of opposition or the absence of logic, legality or reality. The comparison of the January 7 election with the election in North Korea said it all, almost.
The election, however, did not end the North Korean way. The Awami League and the Election Commission, working hand and glove, messed up the narrative because they wanted to show that the election was free, fair and participatory to fool the US-led west and the United Nations. They failed to consider that the North Korean model helps to suppress the opposition that they did successfully, but it does not deliver the conditions that the US-led west and the United Nations wanted because in the North Korean model, these conditions do not exist.
The Awami League and the Election Commission’s attempt at managing the January 7 election to fool the US-led west and the United Nations also failed because the Jatiya Party which they hand-picked as the opposition failed miserably. The party, a ghost of what it was under president HM Ershad leading to the 2014 election when the AL regime had similarly used the party after the BNP’s boycott, looked like a party of riff-raffs. It performed like orphans under the pathetic leadership of president Ershad’s brother GM Qader.
The Jatiya Party has, thus, failed to keep the 26 ‘confirmed’ seats that the Awami League gave it. The Awami League expected that it would win a few on its own and become a presentable opposition in the next parliament. It ‘won’ only 11 of the 26 seats, let alone taking any of the ‘open’ seats. It has failed to get the 15 seats to become the opposition party in the next parliament. This was a huge setback to the outcome the regime expected to establish that it had held a free, fair and participatory election.
The Awami League’s dummy strategy had two objectives. First, the dummy candidates would avoid the embarrassment and constitutional illegality of 2014 when in 154 seats, there were no candidates against the Awami League and its allies. Second, the dummy candidates would make the election participatory. Both the objectives failed. The Awami League created another surreal political embarrassment. The ruling party will have no opposition again as in 1973 or create another constitutional nightmare and form an opposition from the 62 dummy candidates that are all Awami Leaguers.
The victory of the dummy candidates also flagged the infighting in the ruling party. There was widespread violence and several people were killed in the election. There were cases of arson and torching of buses and trains. The regime as usual blamed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party but a very few believed that the BNP, given the oppression and suppression they faced leading to the election, was in any position to commit these grievous acts.
China and Russia congratulated the Awami League on its return to power because they were not bothered about free and fair election. India’s case was different. India supported the 75 million people of Bangladesh in their darkest hour in 1971 when they were fighting for their life against the Pakistan military’s threats to their human, political and electoral rights. India has now backed the Awami League when the majority of the people of Bangladesh are fighting for the same rights. India has, thus, joined China, which supported the Pakistan military regime in 1971 to welcome the Awami League’s return to power.
Ironically, Sri Radha Dutta, an Indian analyst well known for her unflinching support for the Awami League, injected reality into the surrealism surrounding the election and the Indian response. In an interview with a Bangla daily, she said that the voter turnout was less than 10, a conclusion that she reached personally and through her contacts in Bangladesh. She also said that India was not concerned about Awami League’s democratic credentials that were on the slippery slope in any case or in free or fair election, oblivious to what political scientists or educated people like her may think. She said that India backed the Awami League because it is its best guarantee for its national security concern in the context of its fragile north-east, in particular, and the region, in general.
There was a fundamental flaw in Sri Radha Dutta’s security analysis. India believed that China had actively been supporting the separatists in the Seven Sisters such as ULFA till the Awami League came to power in 2009. India further believed that till then, these separatists had been using the Bangladesh soil as a sanctuary and passage for their arms and weapons. The AL regime unilaterally assured India of support against these groups immediately on coming to power in January 2009 and ensured what it promised. The ULFA separatists and such groups have been greatly weakened as a result.
The geopolitical situation has changed dramatically since then. China is now visibly the most influential among foreign powers in Bangladesh. It has gained dominance in Bangladesh at a time when the AL regime needs it desperately because it has managed to turn the US-led west and the United Nations as its antagonists on issues of human rights, democracy and a free, fair and participatory general election. India, its backing for the Awami League notwithstanding, is not in the same league as China to give the Awami League the kind of support it would need moving forward.
If the Chinese ambassador Yao Wen is to be believed, China will soon start construction of the Teesta Project, strategically located in the most dangerous place in Bangladesh for India’s security interests. It is located in the Siliguri Corridor, or the Chicken Neck, the narrow strip of Indian territory that separates Bangladesh from Nepal and is too close to the Chinese border. The Chinese ambassador also stated that China would also build six smart cities on the banks of the Teesta.
There are unconfirmed reports that Myanmar has permitted China to construct a surveillance base on Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal, not far from Cox’s Bazar. The area is also only 53 kilometres north of India’s tri-service base in Nicobar and the Andaman Islands. The AL government gave China the contract to build the expansion of the Sylhet airport, strategically located very near the Seven Sisters, after coming to power in January 2019. India tried to encourage the AL regime not to give the contract to China but failed.
China is, thus, positioned far better than ever as a security threat to India. It was threatening Indian security if it was doing that at all, from outside Bangladesh before 2009; it has not moved strategically deeper inside Bangladesh. China’s presence in Bangladesh today is ironically more threatening to India’s security than East Pakistan ever was. The Pakistanis kept East Pakistan an orphan militarily by arguing that its defence lay in strengthening the defence of West Pakistan.
The January 7 election was given another surreal twist that became evident after the new cabinet was formed. Twenty-eight ministers, including 15 cabinet ministers, were dropped. The dropped ministers included the ministers of foreign, finance, planning, commerce, health, and environment. The regime, thus, contradicted its own claim of economic development by dropping these important ministers who led the ministries responsible for economic development.
Postscript: New Delhi opposed a free and fair election to stop the Bangladesh Nationalist Party from coming to power. With the Indian general election due in April–May, the last thing that the Bharatiya Janata Party wanted in Bangladesh was a government under the Bangladesh Nationalist Party that Indians consider pro-Islam because of its closeness with Jamaat-e-Islami and anti-Indian as well.
The artcile appeared in the New Age.