Photo credit: Prothom Alo English
Shahid Islam
9 November 2018
Elections inject oxygen into democracy’s body politic. Timely and fairly held elections keep democracy alive and kicking. As Bangladesh leap frogs from one electoral setback to the other, the 2018 general election too seems to have been bottlenecked and, destined to hit a major bump. In the midst of the Election Commission’s (EC) insistence on holding the election on time, the United National Front (UNF) under the lead of Dr. Kamal Hossain wants the front’s demands to be met first, prior to the announcement of an election schedule that’ brooks no further delay,’ says the CEC.
Meanwhile, the series of dialogues between the incumbent PM and the clusters of opposition parties have produced nothing substantive so far, except a ritualized assurance from the PM that the oppositions will be allowed to hold meetings and rallies. Another sign of assuaging the opposition has emerged in the PM’s asking of technocrat ministers to resign, a move, according sources, to make room for some neutral minded technocrats to be inserted in the poll time cabinet.
Level playing field
Holding meetings and rallies are inalienable rights enshrined in the constitution. That the government did not allow the opposition parties to do the same in the bygone days is a blot and an aberration that only sullied the government’s image at home and abroad. The poll time campaign cannot run its full courses unless all the participants in the polls are allowed unfeterred access to campaigning on equal footing.
As well, despite PM’s assurance, thousands were turned back –and thousands detained— from attending the UNF’s grand rally at Shorwardy Uddan on November 6. From that rally, the UNFreiterated its demands — including resignation of the government, dissolution of parliament, and reforms of the EC—and threatened to launch nationwide movement from November 8, following the conclusion of its second leg of dialogue with the PM on November 7.
Divided opposition
The parties arrayed to fight out the incumbent regime are of checkered nature, most of them, now under different banner of alliances, are deferential to the government’s wishes of joining the election under the PM Hasina and her government’s incumbency. The most challenging plank and the Achilles heel to the regime, as of now, is the UNF — with the main opposition BNP as its bulwark and the centre of gravity, and with an assessed 55 percent of vote bank in its credit. Should the UNF manage to launch a movement following its dissatisfaction about the outcome of a second dialogue with the government on November 7, many of the swing voters will tilt toward the UNF due to the likelihood of a credible and fair election taking place only under an interim/ caretaker regime, which the UNF desperately wants.
Among the other oppositions, the left alliance and the Juktofront led by former president Dr Bodruddoza Chowdhury are likely to insist until the last moment to having the polling under a caretaker regime while the Jatio Party (JP) and the little known other Islamic parties will be pliant and amenable to anything the government wishes. The reasons being: the JP has already lost its credibility by being an opposition party by name only, having ministers in the existing cabinet, while the Islamists, other than the mainstream Jamat-I-Islami (JI) — which is no more a legitimate political party — are not at all a force in terms of vote bank and public empathy. Worse still, the Hefajat-I-Islam, once an ardent opponent of the Hasina regime, had ‘sold itself to the government’ lately, to have discredited the image of political Islam further.
Conspiracy abounds
As dialogue fails, and a mass movement ramps up, there are rumours of various hues in the grapevine that, liked the bus burning incidents in the wake of the 2014 election, a ‘designated fifth column’ will create anarchy in the country to proffer suitable pretext to foil the polling and bringing about an emergency regime. Exactly who will perpetrate such a demarche is hard to guess, let alone pontific empirically. Yet, such an outcome seems in the liking of both the ruling AL and the BNP as it enables both the parties to obtain a face saving outcome and set aside the gridlock on which they can ill afford to be reconcilable in principle.
Here’s why? The BNP cannot join the polling unless it takes place under a neutral regime; a demand for which it had boycotted the 2014 election and paid heavy prices in terms of political re-capitalization and personal well beings of the party’s leaders and workers. For the government — after having gone through so much while amending the constitution to annul the caretaker provision in the interregnum –caving onto the same demand now is not an option, as it makes the BNP instantly victorious.
Besides, survey/polls conducted by private groups and few intelligence services conclude that, in a fair election, incumbent AL faces the prospect of being browbeaten by landslide victory of the BNP and its electoral allies. Hence the apprehension that the government itself might resort to the tactic of surreptitiously-conducted false flag operation to blame the opposition of criminal conspiracies to abandon the election by invoking emergency, extenuating reasons, as did the 2007 military-led regime.
Constitutional ramifications
Deferral or annulment of the election, without any unavoidable exigency, will tantamount to constitutional aberrations and trigger future litigations on political imperfection, breach of constitution, as well as other allegations of authentic import. For instance, allegations can range from mishandling of, or being complicit about the Peelkhana massacre of 2009 to being complicit and lukewarm in bringing the Bangladesh Bank money heist group to task; being cavalier in investigating and punishing the stock market racketeers and bank money looters; and, being inhuman and illegitimate in punishing hundreds of thousands of political dissenters over the last 10 years, etc.
Added to the electoral misconduct and the failure to holding an inclusive election in 2014, and the alleged deportation/ eviction of a chief justice from the country, the odds against the incumbent regime are of Himalayan magnitude.
That explains why a regime, being in power for two consecutive terms, is hell bent on clinging onto power ‘eternally’ at the cost of rendering the nation undemocratic and utterly despotic. That also explains, why not a single substantive demand of the UNF is being granted as a way of ensuring the holding of a free, fair election.
Triumph of nationalism
These days, political waves across the globe are stoking intense nationalism. Not only the US had witnessed the election into office of a ‘protectionist president’ like Donald Trump, Brazil witnessed the victory of JairBolsonaro in the October 7 election. Intensely nationalistic, former army Captain Bolsonaro is a hard-core right winger who had promised to restore his country’s ‘lost national honour’ by not being subservient to global powers. In Mexico, a baseball-loving leftwing nationalist, Andrés Manuel LópezObrador (64), became the president while in neighbouring Maldives, Ibrahim Solih, a nationalist leader and a firm believer of multi-party democracy, won the last election.
Our government has a choice to make now, as the election bell rings loud and the hours come closer. It can choose to be authoritarian by brushing aside the popular demands of an election under a neutral, caretaker regime, or be ready to be swept away by a nationalistic surge, today or tomorrow. The government may be blind-folded by the eulogies of sycophants; we can see writings on the wall that are not black and while.