Awami League President and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today announced her party's polls manifesto for the 2024 national election, vowing to build a developed, prosperous and Smart Bangladesh by 2041.

"Bangladesh will be established as a high-middle-income country by 2031 and a developed, prosperous, smart one by 2041 by the Bangladesh Awami League, the bearer of the spirit of the Liberation War, if the people once again allow us to serve them by voting for the boat, the AL's electoral symbol," she said.

The premier said if the people of the country vote for the AL, her party will give them development, peace, and prosperity.

The AL chief made the remarks after unveiling her party's election manifesto at a city hotel this morning, just 10 days before the 12th parliamentary election slated for January 7.

The slogan of the AL's election manifesto is "Smart Bangladesh where Development Shines, Accelerating Employment".

The manifesto has given priorities to 11 issues.

In the manifesto, the AL vowed to show zero tolerance against corruption and terrorism, alleviate poverty, create employment, and ensure service-oriented and accountable administration.

The AL manifesto also put greater focus on infrastructure development, freedom of press and the practice of transparency, accountability, good governance as well as strengthened democratic values in all aspects of state management.

It, as well, promised to be tougher against money launderers, to eradicate bribery and corruption at all levels of the state and society, to establish a universal health system, and introduce health insurance.

"We are responsible for all the mistakes during the last 15 years ... Success is yours. Look at our mistakes with a forgiving eye. We promise to learn from past mistakes and conduct future activities according to your expectations," she said.

Right now, Bangladesh is standing in a transitional period and the country is going to join the ranks of developing countries from the list of least developed countries, she said, adding that this transition is an honour on the one hand and a huge challenge on the other.

"The government to be formed by the January 7 election must have the capacity to face this challenge. Only the Awami League can face this challenge and take the country to new heights," she said.

Looking forward to the 12th election, Sheikh Hasina said they have once again appeared before the countrymen with the election manifesto of Bangladesh Awami League.

"As a continuation of the past, this time, we have prepared an implementable election manifesto by setting specific targets. The continuity of the long-term action plans announced in the 2008, 2014, and 2018 election manifestos has also been maintained in the 12th election manifesto," she said.

The AL chief said they will not claim that they have always been a hundred percent successful in running the government despite sincerity and devotion.

She continued: "Awami League does not believe in the politics of words. We do what we say. The implementation of election manifestos of 2008, 2014, and 2018 is proof of that."

But at times, she said man-made, natural, and global obstacles slowed down Bangladesh's progress, adding that during 2013-16, they had to move forward by confronting the attempts of BNP-Jamaat to spread terrorism and militancy.

Since 2009, they had to deal with several natural disasters while the biggest blow came in 2020 when the global coronavirus pandemic broke out, Sheikh Hasina said, adding that the pandemic devastated economies and health systems around the entire world.

"Our government has successfully handled this terrible pandemic of the 21st century and kept the wheels of the economy running," she said.

However, as soon as the pressure of the coronavirus pandemic stopped, first, the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, and this year the Israel-Palestine war started, she added.

The sanction and counter-sanction against each other have thrown the world economy into turmoil and the least developed and developing countries like Bangladesh are being forced to import products at higher prices, she continued.
The depreciation of the domestic currency has led to an increase in inflation, which has an impact on commodity prices and people's lives, the premier said.

"Several times, despite multifaceted and all-out efforts, we have not been able to curb the rise in prices of daily necessities. This problem is not only for our country, but this problem is also for all rich and poor countries," she said.
However, "We are trying to reduce the plight of the lower and lower-middle class people through various initiatives, including expanding social safety net coverage. We hope that we can overcome this obstacle very soon, In Sha Allah," she added.

Whenever the election comes, the AL chief said an anti-liberation, anti-Bangladesh, and anti-development clique becomes active with a leap of conspiracy.

"They enter the field by using tricks or vote rigging or through the back door to come to power. If they become unsuccessful, they jump on the people to take revenge," she said.

She went on saying that the anti-liberation force wants to intimidate the public through arson attack, burning of vehicle, bombing, sabotage, or terrorist activities.

"This time, there was no exception. This time, they are also making conspiracies from abroad. Realising that they will not get the people's mandate, they have already indulged in terrorist activities," she said.

In the name of the hartal-blockade, the premier said that vehicles are being burnt, people are being killed, railway lines are being rooted up, and various vandalisms are being carried out continuously.

"The charred bodies of the mother and child have deeply shaken everyone's conscience. Such heinous acts can no longer be tolerated. Without getting the response to the people, mercenary forces are continuing this vandalism and damaging the vehicles," she said.

The people of this country will never let them fulfill their dream of disrupting the election through terrorism, she continued.

"As you resisted them in 2013-2016, let us collectively defend them this time. This anti-independence, anti-development vulture party will never be able to wound Bangladesh with their poisonous teeth and claws - let's take this oath in the month of victory," the AL chief said.

She reminded that this country's outstanding achievements- starting from establishing the rights to speak the mother tongue and achieving the motherland's independence, have come through the hands of the Awami League.

The AL president said Bangladesh has been transformed in the last 15 years as today's Bangladesh is by no means poverty-stricken or economically fragile.

"I can unequivocally say that today's Bangladesh is now a 'Changed Bangladesh.' Bangladesh is now a fast-paced country moving forward with its potential. Minor setbacks cannot hinder our economic progress today," she said.

AL General Secretary Obaidul Quader also spoke at the function.

Convener of the Election Manifesto Committee Dr Muhammad Abdur Razzaque gave the address of welcome.

Cabinet members, politicians, foreign diplomats, educationists, journalists and eminent personalities of the country were present.

Two video documentaries highlighting the journey of Bangladesh towards prosperity under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina were screened at the function.

In 1978, a book edited by Guy Hermet, Richard Rose and Alain Rouquie was published with an interesting title, Elections without Choice. The book drew some attention soon after its publication, but little did we know that, decades later, the notion of "elections without choice" would become so relevant to the world in general but more so for Bangladesh. As the country is heading towards an exercise that the incumbent is calling an election, it is imperative that we understand what is in the making.

The edited volume of Elections without Choice was an outcome of a research project initiated by the Committee on Political Sociology, composed of the International Political Science Association and the International Sociological Association. The editors quite rightly noted that political scientists deliberately avoid discussing non-competitive elections, because those elections do not meet the fundamental criterion of a liberal democracy. Not only did they underscore the need for understanding non-competitive elections, but also insisted that such elections are important in tracing the trajectory of each country.

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The book was published at a time when the world was witnessing a gradual shift towards democracy, one country at a time. The Carnation Revolution in 1974 in Portugal and the death of Francisco Franco in 1975 in Spain started a wave, identified as the "Third Wave of Democracy" by Samuel Huntington in 1991. In the early days of democratisation, promoted by Western countries, it was assumed that an election was a key indicator of the political liberalisation process.

In the 1990s, with the demise of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy proliferated globally. It was believed that democratic regimes would be the norm and there could be only a few holdouts of autocratic regimes. But within less than a decade, two features became evident. The first one was that elections by themselves do not demonstrate democratisation, because authoritarian regimes also hold elections that are manipulated. The second feature was the emergence of a new kind of regime, with some apparent democratic traits but which are essentially autocratic; they were called hybrid regimes.

The 2014 election was boycotted by the opposition, yet strategies such as packing the Election Commission, or harassing the opposition, or changing electoral rules were used by the incumbent. In the 2018 election, another tool was added—keeping opposition candidates off the ballot—and this was done both by confining leaders and cancelling their nominations on flimsy grounds, making the candidates spend time at the courthouse, which has not been helpful to the candidates.

Subsequently, these regimes, which often hold elections and win at ease, were described as "electoral authoritarianism." These regimes tend to hold regular elections, but these elections are engineered in a fashion that opposition parties have little to no chance to win. In both closed autocracy and hybrid regimes, these exercises are essentially "elections without choice." Consequently, the attention of political scientists and observers shifted to the "quality" of elections.

Evidence mounted in the 2000s that autocrats and rulers of the hybrid regimes manipulate elections. Election manipulation was not a new phenomenon. However, from the 1970s through the 1990s, manipulation of elections was easily detectable: there was blatant rigging, which included capturing polling booths on election day and weapon-wielding party loyalists scaring voters away from polling stations and stuffing the ballot boxes.

But as these hybrid regimes emerged and the despots needed to have some semblance of legitimacy to continue their rule, rigging of an election took a different route. This is the period of regression of democracy, often described as "democratic backsliding," which political scientist Nancy Bermeo defined as "the state-led debilitation or elimination of any of the political institutions that sustain an existing democracy." These political institutions, Bermeo reminded us in an essay, include "all the institutions that enable people to formulate and signify preferences and then have them weighed by their elected representatives."

Two years after Bermeo's essay was published, a seminal book by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt published in 2018, titled How Democracies Die, unequivocally stated that sometimes democracy dies with a bang, with coups, quickly and forcefully. But lately it happens slowly, incrementally; "democratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box." The would-be autocrats rise through the elections, and then they change the rules of the game. Levitsky and Ziblatt use the analogy of a football game. "To consolidate power, the would-be authoritarians must capture the referees, sideline at least some of the other side's star players, and rewrite the rules of the game to lock in their advantage, in effect tilting the playing field against their opponent." When they talk of a referee, in the political context, who are they referring to? "These include the judicial system, law enforcement bodies, and intelligence, tax and regulatory agencies," they write.

Election, in a tilted field, is already rigged in such a manner that it can deliver only one result—a victory for the incumbent. The manipulation of elections, Bermeo told us, is one of the three key features of democratic backsliding. But such manipulation is not like how the classical autocrats used to do it—blatantly. Instead, these are "strategic manipulation," which includes "a range of actions aimed at tilting the electoral playing field in favor of incumbents." Bermeo provides a list of these actions: "keeping opposition candidates off the ballot," "packing electoral commissions," "changing electoral rules to favor incumbents," and "harassing opponents." Usually, these are done "in such a way that the elections themselves do not appear fraudulent" and are intended to fool election observers and the international community.

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As for these practices, perhaps nobody else has identified them better than Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas. Their book, published in 2018, is titled How to Rig an Election. The name sounds like a manual. In some measures, it is so. Only that they have dissected the manual or the playbook of the autocrats drawing on elections around the world. Cheeseman and Klaas identified the leaders who go for rigging: "Leaders are most likely to try and stay in power when they believe that their presence is essential to maintain political stability; in cases when they are less committed to plural politics; when they have engaged in high-level corruption and/or human rights abuses; when they lack trust in rival leaders and political institutions; when they have been in power for a longer period of time; and when they control geostrategically important states with natural resources, effective security forces, weak institutions and high levels of distrust."

They looked at six strategies that autocrats use to manipulate elections: gerrymandering (shaping electoral constituencies to the incumbent's benefit), vote buying, repression of opposition, hacking the election, stuffing the ballot box, and playing the international community. Interestingly, while ballot box stuffing is the most effective strategy, considering the risk of exposure, often autocrats use other strategies ahead of the election to ensure a victory. This is how elections are held by autocratic regimes.

Since the 2014 election, none of these strategies have been in short supply in Bangladesh. That election was boycotted by the opposition, yet strategies such as packing the Election Commission, or harassing the opposition, or changing electoral rules were used by the incumbent. In the 2018 election, another tool was added—keeping opposition candidates off the ballot—and this was done both by confining leaders and cancelling their nominations on flimsy grounds, making the candidates spend time at the courthouse, which has not been helpful to the candidates.

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How to judge the Election Commission’s performance

These have delivered victory, not only a hollow one but something more than that, if we borrow from Cheeseman and Klass: "so one sided as to beggar belief, exposing the ruling party to ridicule." The ruling Awami League has not, by any means, abandoned its 2014 and 2018 strategies, but instead has become further audacious. The violent crackdown on opposition since October 28, arrests of BNP leaders, convictions of BNP leaders and activists at lightning speed, and shutting down party offices are testimonies to the continuation of these strategies. They also show how referees have been captured.

But in search of a way to avoid the ridiculous situations of winning 153 seats unopposed in 2014 or winning 96 percent of seats with allies in 2018, and additionally to "play the international community," it has invented a new way called fielding "dummy candidates." The so-called 'dummies" are candidates who belong to the ruling party but are contesting the election as "independents" with the approval of the party. Besides, the smaller parties, "king's parties," and individuals who have been cajoled or coerced into participating in the election, thanks to state apparatuses, would like to run under the symbol of the ruling AL.

Ironically, these have not saved the party from being a subject of ridicule, but made it more embarrassing for it long before a single vote has been cast. Importantly, all these have laid bare that the ruling AL is moving towards an "election without choice."

Ali Riaz is distinguished professor of political science at Illinois State University in the US, non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, and president of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies (AIBS). His forthcoming book is titled 'Pathways of Autocratization: The tumultuous journey of Bangladeshi politics.'

Views expressed in this comment are the author's own.

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The script had been followed to the tee. Long before October 28, we heard leaders of the ruling party reiterating how the opposition was going to resume its usual "jalao porao" (carrying out arson) tactics, in reference to the 2014 incidents. They also vowed in public rallies how they would "protect" the public from such mayhem. Now, after images of violence have been circulating in mainstream and social media, violence that has left several people killed—including a policeman, Jubo Dal leader, and a conductor who was sleeping in a bus that was set on fire—as well as bloodied the faces of journalists and ruling party men beaten up by BNP activists, it seems that this round of the battle has been won by Awami League.

That there would be clashes and bloodshed was a forgone conclusion. The political rhetoric circulating in the last few weeks has been pointing to an escalation of hostility between the two major parties AL and BNP, with Jamaat chiming in to spice things up. While BNP has been steadfast in its demand that the government resign and that the elections be held under a caretaker government, AL has made it clear that they will do anything but that, with the ruling party's general secretary saying that the election-time government could only be headed by Sheikh Hasina. Thus, the possibility of coming to a compromise was actually zero. In fact, the quips of bringing sticks with flags on them and how "we will see how they stay in the alleyways" gave the impression that the characteristic brute force seen in the past would be used on the opposition.

But this did not happen the way it was anticipated, and it seemed AL had successfully created the apprehension of a ruthless clamp-down on BNP without the usual intensity.

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In pictures: Dhaka streets turn violent

So, on the face of it, BNP failed to keep its promise of holding peaceful rallies, and the ruling party apparently showed uncharacteristic restraint by concentrating more on celebrating the inauguration of the Bangabandhu tunnel over the Karnaphuli River. The optics were glaringly contrasted.

In Dhaka, the designated streets occupied by BNP looked like a battlefield, with opposition activists clashing with police, a fatally wounded policeman lying motionless among the debris, and buses being burnt to a crisp. In Chattogram, a beaming prime minister and jubilant AL supporters inaugurated the most impressive modern infrastructure the country has ever seen—a tunnel under a river, promising unprecedented economic benefits.

But before we draw decisive conclusions, let us examine the facts—or at least what we know and don't know.

According to reporters on the field, the BNP rally in Nayapaltan on October 28 began peacefully. But around 3pm, police approached from two sides, opened blank fire, and hurled sound grenades and tear gas as they reached the rally venue. The BNP men threw brickbats in response and thus, the rally was foiled. Before this, according to police, BNP activists stopped two pickup vehicles and a bus carrying ruling party activists near Kakrail mosque and vandalised the vehicles, which caused a clash to ensue and prompted the police to get into action. This escalated when more BNP activists rushed to the spot and started throwing brick chunks towards the police, leading to more clashes and chases and counterchases between BNP men and the law enforcers.

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Violence prevails yet again

AL therefore had the perfect pretext to take a hardline against the BNP, after showing what it claims was their patience and restraint. This has led to the arrests of Mirza Fakhrul and other BNP leaders and activists, who have been slammed with numerous cases including the vandalism of the chief justice's house in Kakrail.

Let us not forget, however, the other bits that make up the backdrop of this drama.

The indiscriminate number of cases made against hundreds of BNP men long before October 28 (cases accusing leaders of the arson incidents of 2014), the counter "peace rallies" called on the same date as each BNP rally, the arrests of activists coming to attend rallies, police going through mobile phones of BNP members trying to attend rallies—these moves by the ruling party give us an idea of how determined it has been to thwart BNP at every level. The incidents of October 28, therefore, cannot be presented as being so simple as AL is promoting them to be, and are instead a culmination of the vitriolic politics of our country—wherein the ruling party yields all the power, and must carry the bigger burden of responsibility.

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Fighting on the streets cannot be the way of political parties

The incidents of October 28 and their aftermath, in addition, are mired in mystery and raise certain questions. What, for instance, was the police's role during the Jamaat rally at Shapla Chattar, which the government adamantly refused to give permission for but later relented, and which went on smoothly. Why were the police so lenient on Jamaat members who had declared they did not believe in any "man-made laws" and aimed to establish Sharia law in the country? Could the police have avoided breaking up the rally in Nayapaltan? Who were the "youths" on motorbikes wearing police vests who set fire to a bus in Kakrail? It is unlikely that there will be any objective government probe into unravelling these mysteries, since a status quo fits into the official narrative.

While reports have revealed that BNP men did beat up ruling party activists and journalists, and also injured law enforcers and vandalised vehicles, the instigators of other incidents of violence have not been unearthed.

In the wake of the announcement of BNP's "countrywide blockade" on October 31, and on November 1-2, with other parties joining in, and the government's heightened hardline against BNP, the possibility of more violence and political murkiness is all that the public can be certain of.

Aasha Mehreen Amin is joint editor of The Daily Star.

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Events leading to the schedule announcement of our 12th parliamentary election appear to be eerily similar to those before the previous two much discredited and disputed elections. This time, apart from serious disagreements among the most potent challengers centring the election management process, the Election Commission's consistently inconsistent statements and decisions show that it lacks the courage and capacity to act decisively and independently. Otherwise, Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal's address to the nation would not have been full of contradictions.

CEC Awal admitted that "the EC has been noticing differences among the political leadership regarding the polls, particularly on the issue of the institutional system of elections," and that "consensus and solutions are needed," but announced the voting schedule without any resolution of the disputes. He then expects the nation to trust him when he says, "We believe the upcoming polls will be free and fair, impartial, participatory, and peaceful."

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He said, for a free, fair, inclusive, and festive election, there is a need for a conducive political environment, but leaves the responsibility for creating it on the parties entangled in an existential fight. He again contradicted himself when he said "... if conflict and violence take place due to differences, instability can be created, which will have a negative impact on the election process," but in the same breath urged the people "to go to polling centres in festivity and exercise their voting rights freely, keeping aside all concerns, anxieties, and discomforts." The CEC then reminded the nation that "meaningful competition is an essential element of an election," but didn't explain how the next election could be meaningfully competitive without participation of the ruling party's main challenger and several other political parties.

Other events that have proved the EC's inability and partisan behaviour towards the ruling party include its failure to deal with gross irregularities in local government and parliamentary by-elections, granting registration to two unknown and dubious parties, declining registrations for a number of well-known parties on shallow grounds, and entertaining discredited election observers associated with the ruling party—who brought in fake foreign observers—and enlisting them as local poll monitors despite earlier rejection.

Such inconsistencies are nothing new. The EC has repeatedly said one thing and did something other than that, if not the opposite. A more disturbing trend has also emerged, in which we see the EC secretary cancelling out the CEC's observations. The most recent one is secretary Md Jahangir Alam's assertion a week ago that a conducive environment to announce the schedule of the next general election exists, though the CEC in his address to the nation decried its absence and urged all parties to reach a consensus. One may wonder whether the CEC would exercise his authority over the administration and replace the secretary who is clearly out of line. Former election commissioner late Mahbub Talukder's book, Nirbachonnama, bears the testimony of how the EC secretariat served its political masters instead of the constitutional body.

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Election Commission's burden of a looming non-inclusive election

Other events that have proved the EC's inability and partisan behaviour towards the ruling party include its failure to deal with gross irregularities in local government and parliamentary by-elections, granting registration to two unknown and dubious parties, declining registrations for a number of well-known parties on shallow grounds, and entertaining discredited election observers associated with the ruling party—who brought in fake foreign observers—and enlisting them as local poll monitors despite earlier rejection. These events suggest that the EC is either giving in to pressure from some powerful quarters, or it lacks the required skills and independence to regulate the crucial elements of a genuine election.

Ignoring substantial opposition to holding a one-sided election, the EC has argued that it has a constitutional obligation to hold the election in time. However, the commission has conveniently forgotten that it also has a constitutional obligation "to ensure effective participation of the people" (Article 11 in Part II of the constitution, under the title "Fundamental Principles of the State Policy"). Footnotes in the most updated version of the constitution—available on the official website of the law ministry—reminds us that the part about the "effective participation of the people" was omitted by the fourth amendment and again inserted (following a national consensus to revert to a parliamentary system) by the 12th amendment in 1991. Should we be sacrificing effective participation of the people in the name of constitutionalism, albeit, which has been amended (by the 15th amendment) allegedly in an unconstitutional manner?

Effective participation of the people is not only a national requirement, but an international one too. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, states, "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."

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EC’s act is ‘an improbable fiction’

On November 16, 2023, the global body representing parliamentarians of the world, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) published a new tool called the Indicators for Democratic Parliaments, which offers a new approach to measuring parliamentary capacity, resilience, and performance. It devised 25 indicators to evaluate the parliament's own strengths and weaknesses, and one of those indicators is electoral integrity. In judging the electoral integrity, IPU sets the criteria as such: "In practice, elections take place regularly. A significant proportion of citizens participate in these elections. Elections are competitive and citizens' fundamental rights are respected before, during and after election day."

Rescheduling the national election is neither impossible nor without precedence. It was rescheduled, though by seven days only, in the not-too-distant past, in 2018. If parties can agree on the way forward, buying some additional time for holding the election is also possible, as the counting of 90 days can begin afresh if the parliament is dissolved. It is true that the history of dialogue between the two archrivals—Awami League and BNP—is an unhappy one, but there were exceptions, too, such as during the 1991 amendment for returning to the parliamentary form of government.

It may sound superstitious, but the day fixed for voting is a Sunday, the same day of the week the last two sham elections—January 5, 2014 and December 30, 2018—were held on. The last time the people in Bangladesh freely voted was not on a Sunday, but on a Monday. We need a genuine election, not another sham one.

Kamal Ahmed is an independent journalist. His X handle is @ahmedka1

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.