For ruling party or people?

“Delivering an election with such a ‘singular’ objective would be an astronomic endeavor.”

THE Election Commission on September 14 announced the ‘road map’ for the 12th general elections. Election commissioner Ahsan Habib Khan unveiled the road map in the absence of the chief election commissioner, Habibul Awal, who was ill. Ahsan Habib stated that the road map’s objective was ‘singular’ or exceptional which was to ensure that Bangladesh’s next general election would be ‘free, fair, neutral, acceptable and participatory.’

The commission took upon itself a tall order because delivering an election with such a ‘singular’ objective would be an astronomic endeavour. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies have already placed the spanner on the commission’s pledge to make the election participatory by stating that it would not take part in the election unless, first, it was held under a non-party, neutral government and, second, the commission dropped electronic voting machines that were included in the road map for 150 seats. The commission did not explain how the elections would be participatory if the BNP and its allies were to boycott the election.

Some ministers, in particular the planning minister, have strongly defended the commission’s road map. The planning minister stated that the constitution that has empowered the party in power to hold the general election must be followed. He, therefore, further stated that the BNP and its allies had no option but to participate in the next general election under the party government.

The planning minister and other Awami league leaders who defended the next general election under the party government because the constitution has so said were blissfully unaware or intentionally so about a few well-established facts. The first was the political realities in the country as it headed towards the next general election and the second, and more important, was their own party’s political history and its role in Bangladesh’s politics in 1991–96.

The BNP was in power during that momentous period heading the first democratic government after president Ershad’s decade-long dictatorship. The BNP won the 1991 election under a non-party government headed by Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed in what by consensus was a free and fair election.

The BNP walked foolishly into the Awami League’s hands by mindlessly rigging the bye-election to the Magura 2 seat in March 1994. The Awami League with the Jamaat and the Jatiya Party as allies used the Magura rigging to strengthen its  demand for the amendment to the constitution to ensure that the party in power would step down and hand power to a non-party, caretaker government to conduct the general elections. The Awami League and its allies argued that a general election under a party government was the antithesis to a free and fair election in a developing country.

The BNP obliged but only after the AL and allies had brought the country to a standstill with 266 days of the general strike that had brought Sir Ninian Stephen, a former Australian governor general, to Dhaka to negotiate a settlement as the special envoy of the Commonwealth secretary general. Sir Ninian was unsuccessful. Thereafter, the BNP held the general election in February 1996 and the Awami League abstained. The BNP attained the two-thirds majority and adopted the 13th amendment that established the caretaker government system on March 28, 1996. The BNP lost the first election under the caretaker government system in June 1996 to the Awami League and allies but saved the country.

The Awami League lost interest in the caretaker government system on coming to power in January 2009. It abolished the caretaker government system with the 15th amendment in June 2011 after three elections had been held under it that were all ironically free and fair as the Awami League had promised they would while demanding its introduction in 1991–96. The two elections since, namely the 2014 and 2018 elections that were held under the party government, were controversial and farcical and the antithesis to a free and fair election as the Awami League stated in 1991–96 while demanding the caretaker government system.

A general election in a democracy needs, as the cliché goes, two to tango. The opposition BNP and allies objected to the 2014 general election for the same reasons for which the Awami League and allies turned the country’s politics on its head in 1991–96. Leading to 2014 and 2018, these reasons worsened against holding a free and fair election, immensely. The Awami League had politicised all institutions of the government necessary for a free and fair election including the Election Commission to make a national election under the 15th amendment a zero-sum game for the opposition.

The BNP and allies, therefore, abstained from the 2014 election. As a result, in 153 of the 300 seats, there was no election, a fact that was known to all including the EC a month before the election day when the last date for withdrawal of candidates lapsed. That fact alone made the 2014 election a non-election by any definition of a democratic election. There were also massive violations of the democratic, political and human rights of the opposition, most of which were absent when the Awami League demanded the caretaker government system as the panacea for a free and fair election in the 1991–96 period.

The Election Commission and the Awami League changed their strategy for the 2018 election because the BNP and allies participated in it under the pressure of Bangladesh’s development partners. They completed the election necessary to give the ruling party a massive victory the midnight before the election day with the help of the structure and institutions of the government that were expected to ensure a free and fair election. The Awami League and allies, thus, won the 2018 election with 293 of the 300 seats in their favour. The 2018 election, therefore, earned the dubious nickname of ‘midnight election’.

The road map of the current commission did not either address the history of the caretaker government system or the objections of the BNP and allies against election under the party government. The commission has instead added the controversial electronic voting machines to the road map. Meanwhile, the structure and institutions of the government that the commission would need for its ‘singular’ task have shed their neutrality further. The deputy commissioner of a major district led a public prayer for the return of the Awami League to power for a fourth consecutive term.

The commission and those who are convinced that the BNP and allies had no option but to participate in the next election are oblivious also to issues of foreign and strategic affairs and issues of geopolitics that were mainly responsible for the controversial 2014 and 2018 elections. The US-EU-UN with India concluded leading to those elections that Islam and Islamic fundamentalism was their enemies worldwide. They further concluded that the Awami League had to be kept in power to contain Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism as they considered the BNP and Jamaat soft on both.

Meanwhile, the war on terror has ended and with it, Islam appears to be no longer the prime enemy. The ‘US-EU-UN’ have now taken democracy, human rights and free and fair elections as core elements in their strategies in foreign and strategic affairs. The heads of these countries or organisations in Dhaka have made it clear that they expect Bangladesh’s next general election to be free and fair with human rights, the freedom of the media and civil society fully assured for the realisation of democracy in Bangladesh.

India is showing signs of moving towards the US-EU-UN. That was the hint from recent visit of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to India. The Indian high commissioner’s statement to the media while making his farewell visit to the Savar National Memorial that India was interested not in any individual but people and democracy in Bangladesh was very significant.

Bangladesh was liberated in 1971 through the sacrifice of millions to establish a democratic country based on human rights where people would elect their government freely. The 2014 and 2018 elections denied the majority of Bangladeshis that right. Unfortunately, the Election Commission’s road map underlined its desire to deliver what the previous two commissions delivered. However, domestic politics, where the vast majority of Bangladesh are restless for their voting rights, and international relations, where democracy, human rights and free and fair elections, are now the guiding lights for the US-EU-UN and, perhaps, India may not allow the Election Commission to stick to its road map in the months to come.

(This article was originally published in New Age)