Bangladesh goes to polls amid ailing democracy

SALEEM SAMAD

After much international media hype on the Bangladesh election, the day dawned on 7 January.

On the eve of the tense election battle of the ballots, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, called the election environment in Bangladesh “repressive” and said that he is “deeply disturbed”.

The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) has expressed profound concern over the 12th Parliamentary Elections to ensure free and fair elections in Asia voiced its concern.

ANFREL said they strongly believed that this election is at risk of lacking genuineness and electoral competitiveness, raising serious questions about its adherence to democratic principles and international election standards that assess the legitimacy of the electoral process.

The statement also said ANFREL believes that the risk of lacking genuineness and electoral competitiveness emanates from the observed absence of accountability, fairness, and inclusivity in the electoral processes.

Amnesty issued a 10-point human rights charter and urged all contesting political parties to ensure that the protection and promotion of human rights is a core part of their plans for the country.

The 10 points: Respect and protect freedom of expression and media freedom; Protect the protest; Sustainable solutions to the Rohingya crisis; End impunity for enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions; Protect women’s rights; Protect the rights of religious minorities and indigenous peoples; Abolish the death penalty; Inclusive, sustainable responses to the climate crisis; End impunity for custodial deaths and torture; and Uphold corporate accountability and labour rights.

The question they are addressing to the wrong group of politicians, and political parties including the governing Awami League. None of them has the mood to listen to the civil society and often blames them for working for the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami.

On the other hand, a senior Indian journalist Bharat Bhusan writes that the staged election could result in political instability in the country. He believes that the national election on January 7 is widely expected to be neither inclusive nor competitive.

Instability, because Bangladesh has fallen into geo-political fault. China, Russia and India want Sheikh Hasina, the president of the Awami League should return to power with an overwhelming majority.

India’s conspicuous silence over the one-sided election has encouraged China and Russia to adopt a similar policy to keep Hasina in power for another term.

China and Russia are singing the same tune, which could be understood to counter the United States, European Union and other West putting pressure on Bangladesh to hold a free, fair and inclusive election.

The election needs no prediction as BBC News dubbed the polls as a ‘one-woman’ election, while the result already looks inevitable, writes Anbarasan Ethirajan.

The predicted win of stage-managed win in the election would be a win for India, Russia and China.

It’s an election of Awami League versus Dummy League. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has advised his political hierarchy to nominate ‘dummy’ candidates to ensure that if the contestant application is rejected by a higher court or the election commission, at least there is one standby candidate to fight the ballot.

As the dummy candidates have no political credibility and accountability in their constituency they are known to be troublemakers for the rebel candidates who failed to get nomination from governing Awami League.

The dummy candidates are also a political nuisance in the area for obstructing independent candidates, also creating rowdyism for other party candidates.

There are reports of clashes and attacks on rival candidates in scores of district towns. News of vandalism of polling centres is also pouring. Such incidents give a chilling message of violence during voting. The fear is likely to hinder voters from going to the polling station.

Such fear means the election is not free. The voters will go to the polling station with fear and impending violence among supporters and henchmen of rival candidates.

It is expected that violence would be lowest, as the Awami League has no opposition in the real sense. The independent and rebel candidates are unlikely to pose any threats.

In several seats, the rebel candidates are very influential and have a strong support base in the certain constituency. Most rebel candidates have strong people-to-people contacts.

The parliamentary election as Western and Indian media are agog with stories that the election is one-sided and Sheikh Hasina, the Mother-of-Humanity will be elected for the fifth tenure.

She will surely be included in the Guinness World Records, as the longest-serving woman prime minister in the world.

Well, the call for agitation by the BNP and its allies has fallen flat. As the BNP failed to garner the support of the people to protest the one-sided election.

Agitation in the form of a general strike (hartal) and lockdown to disconnect from the rest of the country could not woo the people to support the anti-government movement.

What did not surprise the political observers was that a significant number of candidates from the ‘loyal opposition’ Jatiya Party, Trinamool BNP and other King’s parties have stepped out of the election race.

More than 225 of the 265 Jatiya Party candidates have pulled out of the race, terming the election “one-sided and staged” and others blamed the non-cooperation of the ruling Awami League.

However, only the contestants who were blessed with a quota of 26 have not pulled out.

It’s too late for the candidates to drop out from the race as the last date for withdrawal has long gone.

The Bangladesh Election Commission has also reiterated that they also envisage holding a free and fair election, but could not assure that the election would be free of violence.

Despite repeated promises by the government and the election commission, it seems neither the West nor the international media are convinced that the election would be free, fair, credible and inclusive.

Meanwhile, foreign election observers will be only allowed to visit polling centres within a range oftwo-hour road drive. The observers can travel to cities and towns where domestic airlines fly.

The election commission has given election observer accreditation cards to 127 foreign observers.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Foreign Ministry, Information and Broadcasting, and Home Affairs have imposed conditions on foreign journalists to issue visas to cover the election. Only 73 journalists were accredited to cover the election and visit polling centres.

The award-winning journalist Nazmul Ahasan in a Twitter (X) posted that foreign journalists granted visas are mostly those based in the India bureau. Some are required to sign agreements mandating that their footage receives official approval before publication and that they will not harm the “national image” or “sentiment.”

Indirectly, the Bangladesh authorities have imposed censorship and restrictions on foreign journalists who are not free to report independently.

Bangladesh, the nation tests an ailing democracy on the ballot.

First published in the North East News, Guwahati, Assam, India, 6 January 2024

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter: @saleemsamad

Opposition in Bangladesh failing to unseat Sheikh Hasina

SALEEM SAMAD

Many keen political observers believe that the principal opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has come to a dead end on the road. Their strategy has been violent to demand that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina should step down and an interim government to hold a free, fair and inclusive national election.

BNP has announced to boycott the upcoming national election in January 2024. The party and its alliance have called for a countrywide general strike (hartal) and blockade (oborod).

The blockade was announced in protest of breaking up the BNP’s 28 October rally allegedly by police in conjunction with the ‘golden boys’ of the governing Awami League.

Political historian Mohiuddin Ahmad said the opposition always envisages winning the election. If they access that they will not win, or even win a reasonable number of seats in the parliament, then they threaten to boycott the elections.

Demanding Hasina to quit power and form an interim government to oversee the elections is not happening. The rewritten constitutional provisions have deleted the sections for holding elections under a caretaker government, said Ahmad.

Winter in Bangladesh comes as a blessing when flowers bloom across the gardens and parks in the country. The village women prepare traditional pita (traditional cake made from fresh rice harvest). Some schools are done with their final exam. While others plan vacations during the winter.

The vibrant tourist industry is now challenged with negative business. This awkward situation has been caused by opposition actions and the governing party along with its alliance joining the election fest. In fear of political actions, the customers cancelled their vacation plans.

Ahmad said it is understood what the BNP wants. But the party leaders before they were arrested and sent to prison had not spelled out what they wanted to do after they won the election.

They have not promised that they will abrogate all draconian laws which hinder democracy. They did not say they would ensure accountability and transparency and zero-tolerance for corruption and human rights abuse of law enforcement agencies. They did not say that the judiciary would become independent with no political influence and not harass and intimidate opposition, critics, and dissidents.

The opposition party has not spoken a word about freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press.

Arson, agitation and protest rallies will not change the policy of the government. After boycotting the election they have nowhere to go but sink in a black hole.

There are reasons BNP is aggressive, arrogant and refuses to dialogue with the government parties. Thus arrogance of the BNP has led the party to the end of the road.

Nonetheless, BNP for long is leaderless or rudderless and floating without any compass. The present party leaders are powerless and do not have the guts to manage the party autonomously. It’s no longer news that BNP is managed by a remote controller – sitting in London by a self-exiled leader.

The party chairperson Khaleda Zia is serving jail terms and is restricted in her house. She is barred from politics and unable to contest any elections. The ailing leader with medical complications often shuttles between her home and the hospital.

The party’s de facto leader Tarique Rahman (56), is Senior Vice-Chairman of BNP. A spoiled brat of the military dictator General Ziaur Rahman (1977-1981) and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

The 93-year-old former President Prof Badruddoza Chowdhury once blamed Tarique arbitrarily established a political “powerhouse outside the Prime Minister’s Office” when her mother Khaleda was the Prime Minister (2001-2006).

Tarique never attended any BNP’s central committee or high command’s meetings, but he dictated his decisions. Several ministers and secretaries of various ministries sought his decision and approval of government projects from the popularly known place in upscale Banani, the ‘Hawa Bhaban’, the office of the delinquent.

His schoolmates said he was a flop in the class exam. A below-average student in BAF Shaheen School and College in Dhaka was a timid person and not vocal. He was kicked out of the school for failing an annual exam. Later he was a dropout from studies. The high school certificate and college degree were obtained fraudulently.

Khaleda Zia never expressed embarrassment that her son established a parallel government. She never stopped him from messing with government administration.

Instead, she indulged his son to run an unauthorised powerhouse and also rein the party. Corruption during Khaleda Zia’s regime was not spatial but horizontal – the ‘prince’ did it all.

Discontentment among the senior party leaders and ministers began to surface, which the Prime Minister tried to pacify.

He hated the senior BNP leaders including those Ministers who were inducted into the newly born party by his assassinated father Ziaur Rahman.

He advocates that the country should be governed by new generation (XGen) politicians and not left with the ‘old haggards’.

In the October 2001 election, understanding that the BNP may not be elected to power, he cleverly forged an alliance with the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, which surprised many BNP leaders.

In fact, several senior BNP leaders and ministers were 1971 liberation war veterans and also those from the leftists and communists who joined the nationalist party during the tenure of Zia were uncomfortable with the presence of JeI.

The Islamist party opposed the independence of Bangladesh and collaborated with marauding Pakistan troops. The youths of JeI were recruited to form the death squad, Al Badr.

The death squad, a secret outfit abducted hundreds of intellectuals, tortured them in secret locations and later killed them, which was the saddest episode of the liberation war history.

The Pakistan military committed genocide of 3 million, targeting the Hindus, but Muslims who belonged to the Awami League and people sympathetic to independent Bangladesh were also slaughtered and buried in hundreds of mass graves all over the country.

The occupation forces deliberately used rape as a weapon of war to create a new generation of “saccha (genuine) Pakistanis”.

The crackdown created 10 million war refugees of Hindus and Muslims alike. The war refugees were forced to take shelter in neighbouring states of India. The war has also caused internal displacement of 25 million in search of safe refuge.

The refugees were sheltered in India until Bangladesh was liberated in December 1971. Millions of refugees trekked home to their homesteads only to find their villages were parched, houses looted and torched by local militia.

The JeI leader of the eastern province of Pakistan, Ghulam Azam, fled to Pakistan in 1971 living behind his compatriots and Islamic militia to fight alongside the Islamic army.

Later JeI party was banned. Imbued in the 1974 constitution and declared that any party with a religious objective will not be registered as a political party.

Civil society challenged the self-styled professor Ghulam Azam as the Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh in 1991, arguing that he was a citizen of Pakistan and should be deported. He, however, held the position until 2000.

Azam hated the independence of Bangladesh and believed the territory (Bangladesh) would be under the hegemony of India. Azam was convicted of crimes against humanity in July 2013.

In a development on November 19, the apex court upheld the scrapping of Jamaat-e-Islami’s registration as a political party, barring the party from contesting any polls. The Appellate Division of Supreme Court upholds a verdict from the High Court that prevents the party from running for elected office, writes the private news portal bdnews24.com.

This means that JeI is left with no scope to contest the upcoming elections scheduled in early January.

It could not be ascertained whether JeI has any alternative plan to participate in the national election.

A senior journalist who is familiar with the JeI policy said that the party leaders of Majlis-e-Shura, the highest policy-making body of the JeI will meet soon, to discuss the future of the party and relay the decision to the members.

With Jei put out of circulation, the wings of the BNP have been clipped from forming an electoral alliance or having a strong ally in the anti-government movement.

First published in the Northeast News, 19 November 2023

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter: @saleemsamad