The lists of dengue infections and deaths are only getting longer, and nobody can tell if, or when, the situation will get better. The prices of daily essentials continue to skyrocket, with the price of eggs, the go-to protein for the poor, now equal to that of a kilogram of broiler chicken. Meanwhile, more than 50 people were killed in the floods in Chattogram and the Chittagong Hill Tracts area in recent weeks.

In all of this, it is the common people (or in the context of the upcoming national election, the voters) who are the worst sufferers. But the politicians seem to be blissfully oblivious to the plight of their electorate. There is no denying that the country is headed towards its next parliamentary election with the two major political parties harbouring opposite stances regarding the election itself. Of course, a free, fair, and inclusive election is necessary for a better society and stronger democracy. But when people are suffering the most, when they are dying because of poor governance, how can the political parties focus on only the physical exercise of the election and how it will play out in about four months? Shouldn't their focus be on how best to serve the people now? Shouldn't they be concerned about the welfare of the poorest of society? Shouldn't our politicians be working to win the hearts and minds of the people, instead of engaging in political power play with their archrivals?

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Living like the poor, paying like the rich

Ideally, and historically, people get into politics for the welfare of their people. But it appears from recent political machinations that the people have been conveniently forgotten or even sidelined in the game of politics. When one political party says that the country's people are with it, and the other party claims that it represents the people, I can't help but wonder who it is that is actually representing me, or has my interests at heart.

Bangladeshi politics is going through a critical phase. The fact is that politicians have lost control over politics in general, which appears to have been hijacked by corporate interests – given the representation of businessmen and former bureaucrats in the parliament. Currently, around 62 percent of lawmakers are from the business sector. The government's dependency on the administration has increased. And none but the politicians have brought this upon themselves, in their pursuit of shortcuts and expediency. When career politicians become weak, so does politics. And when the people are sidelined, politics – so far as it is concerned with maintaining democracy – becomes more fragile.

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Is the Awami League worried?

It is in this context that the exhortations of the diplomatic corps in Dhaka – India, China, the US, and the EU – about the supremacy of the people and how they hope that the people's wishes will be reflected in the outcome of the election, are both ironic and intriguing.

The two previous elections changed the nature of Bangladeshi people's participation in national politics. The 2014 election, which BNP had boycotted and which saw 153 lawmakers being elected uncontested, remains a rare example of a lopsided election. In the 2018 election, many people were denied the right to cast their votes, and allegations emerged of ballot-stuffing on the eve of elections, so much so that it was even mentioned by Awami League's alliance members. When politicians found that they could get elected even without votes, voters ceased to become a factor to consider when trying to win elections. In the past, candidates did have to woo voters, and win their hearts and minds to get their votes. But now, when a mere nomination all but guarantees victory for a candidate, the exercise of putting in effort to win voters has become all but cosmetic.

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Did BNP make the wrong call?

On the other hand, while the opposition can do little so far as actual measures are concerned – whether that relates to dengue or prices – it is their responsibility to hold the government accountable. It falls on the opposition to keep these issues alive so that the government cannot ignore them. One way to do that is in parliament, which has unfortunately lost its purpose since the official opposition is, by and large, an informal extension of the ruling party alliance. Meanwhile, the main opposition camp on the streets, BNP, is too obsessed with its one-point demand for a resignation of the ruling government than with the plight of the voters.

So now, whenever I hear calls for this or that "in the name of the people," and when political parties launch campaigns for the supposed sake of the people, it seems to me that those politicians are merely cementing their political careers using the name of the people. Is anyone actually thinking about the families of those 50 people who died in the floods? Or about the children who are going to bed hungry in Bangladesh even now? That one has to pose such questions in a column is perhaps an even bigger tragedy.

Mohammad Al-Masum Molla is chief reporter at The Daily Star.

It is a fundamental principle of justice that any person accused of a crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. This is to ensure the legal rights of the accused throughout a trial. The case of jailed BNP leaders Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Mirza Abbas appears to be a contravention of that principle. Their bail petitions in a case filed over the December 7 clash between BNP activists and police have been rejected for the fourth time now.

As we know, since that clash, hundreds of leaders and activists of the BNP and its front organisations have been arrested. Mirza Fakhrul, the party's secretary general, and Mirza Abbas, a member of its standing committee, were arrested in the early hours of December 9, on charges of inciting violence. While these arrests follow the well-established political strategy of rounding up opposition activists after any clash, one expects the judicial process to follow its own course and take decisions impartially. However, the repeated denial of bail to Fakhrul and Abbas raises concerns about that process.

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AL's strategy of intimidation may no longer be working

To be clear, we're not commenting on the merit of charges brought against them. Their guilt or innocence is for the court to establish. But until that has happened – and so long as they're not flight risks, which they are not – they deserve to get bail like everyone else. Importantly, their names were not even in the First Information Report (FIR) of the case in which they were implicated, while two other BNP leaders – Amanullah Aman and Abdul Kader Bhuiyan – whose names were there in the FIR of the same case were already granted bail by another court. Why this discrepancy? Why different bail decisions in the same case? Are we to accept a breach of legal principles here, and presume them guilty until proven innocent? Who will account for the time they are kept behind bars if they are eventually proven innocent, or if this case drags on indefinitely, which most political cases tend to do?

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Pursuit of peace through violence?

We're talking about two top leaders of our main opposition party. Both are veteran politicians, hold high ranks in their party, and have had ministerial portfolios during BNP's last term in office. They are also reportedly sick, leading to the court directing jail authorities to provide them with proper treatment. Their social status and physical conditions alone would have merited a bail consideration. Unfortunately, in recent years, there have been many instances of bail denials in cases involving rival politicians and government critics. Should we see them as a mere coincidence, or is there any external influence behind such decisions?

We hope the judiciary will reconsider the bail petitions of jailed BNP leaders. It will only help its image and credibility among the public at a time when the judiciary is facing a challenge to establish rule of law amid a complex interplay of legal loopholes, institutional barriers, lack of resources, and intense political pressures that are making justice difficult to deliver. We hope it will rise to that challenge.

After Wednesday's deadly violence at Naya Paltan, there is only one direction in which the ruling establishment can look – inward. What could it possibly gain from a heavy-handed confrontation and raid on the central office of BNP? Was it to orchestrate a situation that would paint the party in a bad light? Was it a message that a mobilisation of this scale at the heart of the capital will not be tolerated? Was it to suppress BNP's months-long movement? Whatever the motive was, it's unlikely to work in the long run. If anything, the ruling camp has come out from the whole exercise looking flustered and rather desperate in the face of a resurgent opposition.

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Why this relentless assault on BNP?

The government, therefore, must look inward before it moves forward on this issue. True, given how BNP has promoted its December 10 rally as the culmination of a "mass upsurge" against an "anti-people" government, it has the potential of reaching a flashpoint. But rallies held by BNP in other divisions in the build-up to December 10 have been mostly peaceful, meaning that any objection to its holding one at Naya Paltan has less to do with law and order than with political considerations. After all, BNP has held some 11 small and large gatherings in front of its central office over the last three months. If police were not bothered about them before, why are they now?

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What is the Awami League afraid of?

BNP must look inward, too. After all, it could have softened its stance on its choice of venue – which ostensibly led to Wednesday's chaos. It could have chosen Suhrawardy Udyan, regardless of the restrictions it says this might put on its rally, or shift the venue away from the city, as it did during the Faridpur rally. But the stringent conditions imposed on its venue selection may make any compromise look like a defeat to Awami League, a fact validated by the latter's toughening of its anti-BNP stance even after the Naya Paltan mayhem. Reportedly, police have declared the area a "crime zone". Meanwhile, more than 1,900 BNP leaders and activists have been sued over the clash, while about 450 of them have been arrested and produced before court. The media has also reported various forms of obstruction to movement around the city, like those reported during previous rallies, potentially to discourage participants.

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Please spare us your ‘khela’

What all this shows is how the prospect of peace is getting dimmer by the hour. Still, as a newspaper that has always stood for democratic rights and freedoms, we feel duty-bound to call for an end to this unsavoury display of confrontational politics. Our appeal may well be unheard, but we must still stress on the importance of allowing BNP to hold its rally, unimpeded. Any lingering of tensions in this regard serves none of the parties involved, certainly not the public. We must remember that any pursuit of peace through violence or heavy-handedness is nothing but a political dead end, which we can ill-afford given how high the stakes are ahead of the next election.

Coming a year before the general election, and nearly a year after the formation of the incumbent Election Commission, it is natural that the six by-polls held Wednesday would be viewed against the wider political backdrop. It was, therefore, frustrating to know how little things have changed, despite the relative lack of violence, which would have been something to look out for under different circumstances. It's quite evident now that any changes, or promises of changes, made over the past year or so only cemented the status quo, which doesn't bode well for our electoral future.

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Calling the by-polls 'free and fair' dims hope for 2024

If we're to pick a word to summarise the by-polls, it would be "absence" – absence of voters, absence of interest from the wider society, absence of strong safeguards against irregularities, absence of main opposition BNP, whose lawmakers' resignation from parliament had led to the by-polls. Voter turnout was poor in all the six constituencies. As per an estimate, only about 28 percent of voters showed up, in a trend that has been persistent throughout all local elections and by-polls held over the last few years. The predictable nature of election outcomes, and the lack of trust about the neutrality of responsible state departments, seem to have caused ennui and despair among the people.

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Two by-polls, 29 years apart – yet so similar?

It seems almost futile to ask why the Election Commission is failing to address voter apathy despite repeated appeals from election observers. The EC, after the latest by-polls, again stuck to its "peaceful and well-organised" narrative, even though we have received reports of various election-related irregularities from a number of constituencies. The EC's failure to recognise that the mere appearance of elections is not enough is really alarming. We need fair and participatory elections. And we need the EC to restore the trust of all voters and opposition parties alike.

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Will pre-election politics remain peaceful or become violent?

Another major concern about the by-polls is the "disappearance" of the main rival of the eventual winner in the Brahmanbaria-2 by-poll. This by-poll – which saw a voter turnout of less than 16 percent, the lowest of all constituencies – has been in the news ever since the winner, expelled BNP leader Abdus Sattar Bhuiyan, was backed by the ruling Awami League, which didn't field a candidate there. Abu Asif Ahmed, an independent candidate, has been missing for about a week now. Which makes us wonder: why is nothing being done to find him? What message does it send to the political opponents of the ruling party? And how long will the EC refuse to address the concerns of the opposition parties?

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Is the EC fighting an unwinnable war?

The culture of fear, distrust and criminality that still plagues our electoral system must be removed, and the ruling party must play a leading role in this. Lack of violence in one election means nothing given how political violence and repression continue to occur in every other sphere. If anything, the recent by-polls have shown that we have remained stuck in the same spot for too long, and the authorities must allow genuine reforms to break this status quo. They must help create a level playing field for all parties, and restore public trust in the function of the electoral system.