Ambassador of Switzerland to Bangladesh René Holenstein today said Switzerland commended all parties for their participation in 11th Parliamentary Elections in Bangladesh.

“Switzerland took note of the results of the 11th Parliamentary Elections and commended all parties for their participation in the process,” said Holenstein during a meeting with Bangladesh Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque today.

The Swiss ambassador deplored the violence that occurred before and during the elections causing unnecessary suffering and pain, according to a statement.

Referring to reported accounts of intimidation, irregularities and further obstacles to a level playing field throughout the process, which have tainted the electoral campaign and the vote, Ambassador Holenstein underlined the need to address these reports in full transparency and according to the rule of law.

“Switzerland trusts that the new Government of Bangladesh will uphold the democratic values it was elected upon and that it will support the people’s will to move towards democracy in full respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” he said.

He assured the foreign secretary that Switzerland looked forward to its continued partnership with Bangladesh.

Almost 82 percent of the lawmakers for the 11th parliament have assets worth more than Tk 1 crore, civil society platform Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik (Shujan) said in a report yesterday.

Of those MPs, 32 percent have assets worth more than Tk 5 crore, according to the report unveiled at the Dhaka Reporters Unity in the capital.

According to finance ministry sources, only 0.06 percent of the total population of Bangladesh was valued at more than Tk 1 crore in 2016.     

“The wealthier candidates were elected,” Dilip Kumar Sarkar, Shujan's central coordinator, said while presenting the report.

In terms of income, 27 percent of the MPs have an income of over Tk 1 crore, 18 percent between Tk 50 lakh and 1 crore, 29 percent between Tk 25 lakh and 50 lakh and 17 percent between Tk 5 lakh and Tk 25 lakh.

Only five percent of the lawmakers had an income between Tk 2 and Tk 5 lakh while 1.34 percent of them had an income of less than Tk 2 lakh.

The report also mentioned that 1.34 percent of the MPs had not submitted their wealth statements in their affidavits.

It further showed that 61 percent of the next parliament is made up of businessmen and their number in the Jatiya Sangsad was increasing.

Additionally, 13 percent are lawyers, five percent servicemen, four percent farmers and the rest belonged to different professions.

It is a dangerous sign that the county's politics is going into the hands of businessmen and wealthy people, Shujan Secretary Badiul Alam Majumdar said at the programme.

Political analysts have said the major political parties' dependency on businessmen had effectively turned the politics into a business.

Lawyers, businessmen and farmers were the three most common occupations of the lawmakers elected to the country's first parliament in 1973.

Of the MPs in that parliament, 31 percent were lawyers and only 18 percent were businessmen.

However, in the fifth parliament, constituted through the election of 1991, businessmen outnumbered lawyers, with 38 percent being businessmen and 15 percent lawyers.

After the 2008 polls, 57 percent of the lawmakers elected were businessmen, which rose to 59 percent by 2014.

On a more positive note, Badiul Alam said it was a good sign that educated and taxpaying citizens were being elected as MPs.

The Shujan report shows that 43 percent of the new MPs hold post graduate degrees, 38 percent hold graduate degrees, 12 percent have passed the HSC exams and three percent were SSC graduates.

Only four percent did not pass the SSC exam.

It also said that seven percent of the lawmakers were now facing at least one case, while 45 percent had cases filed against them in the past.

The Awami League used party men, police and administration officials to influence the 11th parliamentary polls, BNP-led Jatiya Oikyafront leaders said yesterday at a “mass hearing”. 

The alliance leaders said ghost cases were filed against its activists and they were harassed and detained without warrants.

“There was no voting on December 30 and so the government formed from it is not valid,” said Maj Gen (retd) AMSA Amin, who had run with Dr Kamal Hossain-led Gonoforum ticket from Kurigram-2.         

The Oikyafront arranged the “mass hearing” on “so-called parliamentary election” at the Supreme Court Bar Association auditorium. A number of the alliance candidates had filed election petitions with the High Court challenging the December 30 polls results.

At least 41 candidates testified during the over seven-hour-long session of the “mass hearing” before a panel that included Dr Kamal and former Dhaka University vice-chancellor Prof Emajuddin Ahmed.

Leaders of the BNP and its political allies said they, by taking part in the December 30 polls, had “unmasked the ruling party”. Top BNP leaders, including its Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Vice-Chairman Abdullah Al Noman and Standing Committee Member Abdul Moyeen Khan attended the programme.

Sabina Yasmin, who ran from Natore-2, said, “I was getting ready to go to the polling stations after learning that my polling agents had been driven out of there on election day.”

She said she could not cast her vote even because her house had been padlocked from the outside that morning.

Detectives in plainclothes picked up her husband -- BNP Organising Secretary Ruhul Kuddus Talukder Dulu -- on December 12. Dulu is now in Keraniganj jail.

Sabina said on December 20 when they were distributing campaign flyers, 30 to 40 AL men harassed her and 15 women working for her campaign.

Four days later, about 500 armed AL men attacked her campaign team of 200, most of whom were women, said Sabina, adding that she along with her activists took cover in a drug store.

They were confined to the shop until police rea

Attendees at the programme offering prayers for the victims of the Chawkbazar fire. Photo: Prabir Das

“I hired fewer men [for the campaign] because they used to get clobbered with hammers,” she said.

Sabina claimed that she could not campaign after December 24.

Anisur Rahman Talukder, who was the BNP candidate for Madaripur-3, said the AL had repeatedly been saying that “the opposition party didn't campaign, didn't have posters printed, and didn't ask for votes”.

Whenever they tried to campaign, they were harassed, attacked, and their posters were torn, he said.

Several other candidates echoed him. Law enforcers cordoned off candidates' houses and when they or their activists came out of the houses, they were picked up, often without any arrest warrants, they said.

Anisur said he learnt from his sources on election day morning that 80 percent of the votes had been cast between 2:30am and 5:00am that day.

BNP leader Rumana Mahmud, who ran from Sirajganj-2, said police fired at her and her activists when they were campaigning on December 14. Her aide Mery Begum lost her eyesight in the attack, she said.

Sardar Sakhawat Hossain Bakul, BNP nominee for Narsingdi-4, alleged that his polling agents were ousted from 152 of 155 polling centres in his constituency on election day.

Nitai Roy Chowdhury, who ran from Magura-2 and bagged around 65,000 votes, alleged that before election day, police went to every ward, union and village in his constituency and threatened his party leaders and activists, detained some of them. They also harassed the women, he claimed.

BNP candidate for Satkhira-1 Habibul Islam Habib said he was nominated several times by the party and had bagged 1.46 lakh votes in the 2008 polls.

He said it was incredible that he got only 17,445 votes and had not got a single vote in 20 of 188 polling stations.

Other defeated candidates of the 11th parliamentary election also accused the ruling party, Election Commission, officials of the administration, intelligence and security personnel of violating the constitution and stripping people their right to vote.

Thanking the alliance members for arranging the “mass hearing”, Dr Kamal said, “It [December 30 polls] cannot be said an election but an event where the government in the name of election staged a farce.”

The government deprived the country's people of their rights, violated the constitution, and insulted democracy, he said.

Without mentioning any name, Dr Kamal said state servants who were in the administration should be ashamed of themselves because they forgot their constitutional duties and became servants of “a single individual”.

The eminent jurist also said BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia should be immediately released, unconditionally.

“It is a pity that even after 48 years of independence, we have to raise such demand for those who contributed to democracy,” he said, calling for unity to “restore” democracy in the country.

The national election of December 30 has turned the life of Mofiz Uddin upside down -- and all for supporting BNP.

From a decent tea-shop vendor at Rabeya market of Bonkishore village in Rajshahi's Tanore upazila, the 48-year old man now works on a potato field.

“I have been a dedicated BNP worker since the 90s,” Mofiz said. “If I have committed a crime, it would be my engagement with BNP.”

In a tin-roofed earthen room under a Koroi tree at the market, Mofiz started the shop and ran it for over the last 20 years.

Furnished with a television, eight chairs, five tables, four benches and a few racks of bakery items, sweets and groceries, his tea-shop fetched him around Tk 3,000 a day to support his family of seven.

On December 21, Mofiz joined the election campaign for BNP candidate Aminul Haq when the latter went to Pachondor union.

Later that evening, a group of stick wielding men went to the market and ransacked the outside of his tea-shop, according to eye-witnesses.

“The attackers were outsiders, not known to me,” said a local businessman.

“I heard about the attack on my shop when I reached home, after campaigning that day,” said Mofiz. A friend of his called him from the market and told him to hide as the attackers were looking for him.

Until polls day, local AL men used the tea-shop as the election office of Awami League candidate Omor Faruk Chowdhury.

“Two days after the election ended, some local AL workers damaged what was left of the shop, including the earthen room, tin-roof, furniture, television, and everything else inside.”

Locals told this correspondent that they heard the AL men would build a party office in that place.

When contacted, Reaz Uddin, president of AL unit at Pachondor ward-2, said, “We are yet to decide on building our office there. If not an office, we may construct a passengers' shed that will come to the use of many.”

He said the land was 'khas' and Mofiz had been illegally occupying it.

On the identity of the attackers, he said, “Nobody knows them. They were wearing helmets and came to the village on motorcycles.”

He denied that it was local AL men who had damaged the shop after the election.

“It was Mofiz's brother, nephew and son who damaged the shop,” he said. On why Mofiz's own relatives would damage the shop, Reaz did not have an explanation.

When contacted, Rajshahi Superintendent of Police Md Shahidullah said they had not heard about the incident.

“We will investigate all allegations of post-election violence,” said the SP, adding that police circulated a message in the district so that no one would spread fear among others over feuds during the election.

Upon losing his source of income, Mofiz began work as day labourer on the potato fields to make ends meet, earning a mere Tk 300 a day.

“I am living in fear. I could not even go see the condition of my shop, the one I so dearly built from scratch,” he said.