M. Serajul Islam 11 November 2023
THE Election Commission started the dialogue with the 44 registered political parties of Bangladesh for holding the 12th national election after the AL-led regime had foiled BNP’s October 28 peaceful and non-violent grand rally for demanding an election under the caretaker government. The commission’s letter inviting the BNP to the dialogue was ‘delivered’ while the police locked its central office at Kakrail and guarded all its entrances.
The regime has, leading to the commission’s dialogue on November 4 and since then, jailed the BNP’s secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and most of its senior leaders and 8,000 others at grass roots in repressive acts unprecedented in Bangladesh’s history. The Pakistani military wanted to do the same in 1971 but was unable to do so because the AL leaders had crossed over to India.
The commission has held the so-called dialogue when the 15th amendment under which it wants the general election has been exposed to all stakeholders as the Awami League’s holy grail for remaining in power as long as it wants. The BNP and other parties will not and cannot participate in such an election unless taken there at gunpoint or, for some strange reasons, its leadership and supporters wanted to commit mass suicide, fed up with life and politics.
A minor political party representative stated in the commission’s dialogue the futility of any party participating in an election under the 15th amendment unless the party is the regime’s sycophant. He said that even if the Almighty sent a team of angels from heaven under Archangel Gabriel, they would still lose to the Awami League in an election under the 15th amendment because the election premises would be in the hands of the Awami League activists, aided and abetted by the commission, the police, and the civil administration on the election duty.
The 15th amendment has been exposed in the public domain in the way it entered the constitution in 2011, its contents and intents, et cetera. It is a zero-sum document for the Awami League. The 2014 and 2018 elections have documented why a general election under the 15th amendment is no longer worth anything more than the paper upon which it is written to any party of political force outside the Awami League and its supporters. The AL leader in the EC dialogue, therefore, praised the commission’s initiative. He also made the insensitive statement that the constitution does not mention that a legitimate election cannot be held without the BNP.
The AL regime is determined to hold the next election like the last two general elections and the commission is doing everything to oblige, both blissfully unaware that the consequences of such an election will be cataclysmic for the country. This time, people outside the AL regime and its supporters who are in the majority have risen. They are determined like the nation was in 1971 not to allow another election to be taken away from them by force.
The BNP-led opposition forces have been in the streets since October 2022, demanding their political and human rights with a focus on a free and fair election. These are the rights for which hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshis embraced martyrdom in 1971. The BNP’s movement leading to its October 28 grand rally for these rights has been peaceful in the Gandhian sense in the face of extreme provocation of the regime, its activists and the law enforcement agencies.
The BNP held its grand rally without any intention to break the law that it repeatedly spelt out. The regime, on the contrary, accused and provoked the BNP of planning violence through the obliging mainstream media. The regime organised its rally on October 28, a strategy it has followed since the BNP successfully took its movement to the streets. Ironically, the regime called its October 28 rally the ‘peace rally’ but asked its supporters to come to it armed with ‘lathi boitha’, a term that triggers in people’s memory the party’s violence during the BNP’s 2001–2006 tenure when it killed people in the streets and danced over their dead bodies.
The AL general secretary threatened the BNP that it would do unto it what it had done to the Hefazat in 2013 if it crossed the alleged redline on October 28. He, thus, acknowledged for inexplicable reasons the 2013 Hefazat massacre that the AL regime had pushed under the carpet that has now become a major issue of conflict with the European Union. The European Union wants to withdraw Bangladesh’s duty-free privilege for exporting its apparel products to the EU markets under the EU’s ‘everything but arms’ policy on the issue of the Hefazat massacre.
The commission’s role has been extremely disappointing in Bangladesh’s politics since the Awami League came to power in 2009. As a constitutional body, it has been provided huge powers for holding elections similar to those enjoyed in parallel bodies in other countries, in India, for instance. Sadly, the Bangladesh’s election commissions that held the 2014 and the 2018 elections and the one preparing to hold the next one have squandered their huge powers for the interests of the AL regime like it was its party activist.
The present commission has added a new dimension to the failures. The AL regime has promised the US-led west and the United Nations that it will hold the next election in a free and fair manner. The commission has belied the promise of its role so far by exposing that it is acting hand in glove with the AL regime to bring it to power for a fourth consecutive time. The commission could not have flagged its subservience to the regime more blatantly by delivering its letter for the dialogue to the BNP with its office locked by the police and its leaders in jail and remaining silent.
There is no hide-and-seek in Bangladesh’s politics any more. The ruling party wants to stay in power indefinitely. The BNP is determined to the contrary. Its movement now at the blockade stage is still peaceful with support at the grass roots like no movement in Bangladesh’s history. The BNP has promised to move it to the non-cooperation stage if the AL regime changes the goalpost by announcing the schedule for a unilateral election.
Meanwhile, the economy is in the red zone and sinking. The foreign exchange reserve has fallen to $19 billion. The Bangladesh Bank governor stated at the Economic Reporters’ Forum that Bangladesh’s current economic crisis is the worst that he has seen in his 36 years in service. Apparel, one of the two main pillars of the economy, is on its knees. Apparel factories at home are facing labour unrest while 12 western countries have withdrawn Bangladesh’s apparel products from their market. It does not need a crystal ball to predict that a failed election will push Bangladesh towards a doomsday.
The BNP and the pro-democratic forces have been able to come thus far against the regime’s attempt to turn Bangladesh into a one-party state because led by the United States, the west and the United Nations have supported human rights, democracy, and free and fair general election. These powers, the United States in particular, did not take side although the regime’s leaders accused, abused and attacked the United States in ways that only sworn enemies of the Untied States such as North Korea have done. The regime’s leaders have demanded that ambassador Peter Haas should be declared a persona non grata.
Peter Haas and the United States have won hearts of the majority of Bangladeshis by backing democracy, human rights and free and fair elections which are also the main objectives of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy. The IPS covers 38 nations and 50 per cent of the world’s population. The IPS has the potential to win hearts of a half of the world’s population but, more importantly, containing China without treading the military path. The success of US initiatives in Bangladesh would be seen as the success of its IPS and send out a strong signal in the Indo-Pacific region.
The US ambassador said that the United States wants what the people of Bangladesh want. Bangladeshis outside the Awami League and its allies or the majority want the next general election under the caretaker government that the Awami League had forced the BNP to adopt as the 13th amendment during the latter’s 1991–96 tenure. Three general elections that were held under it were free and fair and satisfied all parties and most people. It is time for the US to back the caretaker government for it is the only panacea for Bangladesh’s dangerous political crisis. US support for the caretaker government could be the game-changer.
M Serajul Islam is a former career ambassador.
The article was published in the New Age.