Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda has ruled out any scope of holding fresh election, as demanded by opposition alliance Jatiya Oikyafront.

“There is no scope to hold the national election again,” he said while briefing to media today, a day after the 11th parliamentary election was held.

Rejecting the allegation of ballot stuffing on the night before election, the CEC said: “It is completely untrue.”

Expressing complete satisfaction over the election, he said the voter turnout in the polls was 80 per cent.

Nurul Huda said the election took place with festive atmosphere but there may have some unfortunate incidents during the voting and the commission will investigate the incidents.

HOW WAS THE ELECTION?

Voting for the 11th parliamentary election ended peacefully in Dhaka; but was tainted with violence elsewhere across the country and cost the lives of at least a dozen people.

Reports of casualties came in from Cumilla, Chattogram, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Rangamati, Cox’s Bazar, Bogura, Noakhali, Narsingdi and Gazipur.

Allegations of vote rigging, election clashes, intimidation and irregularities came in from several other constituencies and capital Dhaka city.

Also, the election saw opposition candidates boycotting elections in at least 43 constituencies; 42 of who were Jatiya Oikyafront runners.

WHY 2018 POLLS IS SIGNIFICANT?

It is after 10 years that Bangladesh and its people are witnessing an election that is being held in participation of all the major political parties.

The last one held on January 5, 2014, was highly debated both nationally and internationally as it saw no election to more than half of the seats.

A total of 153 constituencies out of the total 300 saw lawmakers elected uncontested – an election which was boycotted by prime opposition BNP.

Sheikh Hasina remained in rule for two consecutive terms with the parliamentary opposition of Jatiya Party, which took part in the cabinet of Awami League.

The Awami League yesterday decided not to field party candidates in any local government polls as a measure to stop infighting between AL leaders.

The infighting worsened after the party decided to nominate candidates in the recently held national election and allowed their party colleagues to compete against them.

The new decision will be effective in the polls to Cumilla and Mymensingh city corporations, which are slated for March 9, said sources.

No candidates will get the party symbol "boat". 

The decision was made at an emergency meeting of AL Central Working Committee, the highest decision-making body of the party, at the Gono Bhaban. AL President Sheikh Hasina chaired the meeting.

The ruling party convened the meeting to discuss the way out of the intra-party feuds.

As the BNP and some other parties boycotted the polls, the party adopted a strategy to make the election appear participatory and to increase turnout. This ultimately led to violence between AL leaders in many places.

According to insiders, at the beginning of the meeting, Hasina asked party leaders to come up their recommendations on how to minimise the infighting and party's role in upcoming elections to upazila parishads, which will be held in phases. The polls are likely to begin in March.

AL Joint General Secretary AFM Bahauddin Nasim started first with his proposal for not providing party electoral symbol in local government elections.

He also recommended holding extended meetings in the districts where AL's internal feuds are intense and said the party should take all-out measures so that the infighting does not intensify further, said sources.

Almost all other party leaders echoed Nasim.

Some of them also suggested that the government take stern action against the arsonists to stop the recurrence of arson attacks, said sources.

At the one stage of the meeting, Hasina, also the prime minister, brought up the US presidential election and said the presidential election between George W Bush and Al Gore was questionable, said meeting insiders.

She said Donald Trump also did not recognise Joe Biden's victory.

Those who are preaching good elections to Bangladesh are mum on the issues of the US presidential election, Hasina said, according to meeting sources.

At the end of the meeting, AL chief Hasina decided to take "boat" out of the local government polls.

The AL started fielding candidates for the local body polls with its electoral symbol "boat" from 2015 after five laws related to union parishads, upazila parishads, municipalities and city corporations were amended, allowing party-backed candidates in local government bodies.

The meeting also assigned eight divisional committees to meet the leaders of the districts where there are intra-party feuds. It also decided to hold extended meetings there to resolve the problem.

While briefing reporters about the outcome of the meeting, AL General Secretary Obaidul Quader said the party would not allocate "boat" to any candidates in upazila parishad elections.

He, however, said the final decision would be made at a joint meeting of party's local government and parliamentary nomination boards.

So far, we have written a lot about the general election and how the ruling party and the present government have miserably failed (in fact, they never really tried) to create an appropriate atmosphere for a free and fair election. We have also written highly critical pieces regarding the way in which they have treated the main opposition, BNP, with hundreds sentenced, thousands arrested, and many thousands more on the run to stay out of the police's clutches. Our legal system stands weaponised to punish the dissenters, with the police having been given full immunity to misuse their powers to punish, harass and intimidate political opponents, terrorising them beyond belief.

But what about the other side? Did BNP play its part in living up to the wishes of its workers, leave alone the wishes of the people who are dissatisfied with the government and disillusioned with the Awami League? Was BNP's decision to boycott the election taken in any consultative manner, or was it simply imposed on the party workers?

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Column by Mahfuz Anam: Is Awami League heading towards a Pyrrhic victory?

Given the tradition of anti-incumbency among our voters, the unending stories of misuse of power, corruption, and the nepotism in AL, it is not unreasonable to think that people may have wanted a change. Did BNP build on that? Our own reporters' briefings, the studies that remain unpublished for fear of reprisal, and the rumoured intelligence reports all suggest that support for the opposition was considerable, if not overwhelming. What did BNP do with that support?

Immediately after the 2018 election, BNP declared that it would not participate in any future election under the AL regime, and demanded a caretaker government. Its division-level mobilisation late last year resulted in massive rallies despite severe obstacles, such as transport strikes and various impediments imposed by the government. It gave the BNP and its sympathisers the impression that the party's campaign was bearing fruit.

This election boycott would be the BNP's second one. There are no instances in our region—perhaps none in other democracies either—of a political party surviving after boycotting two elections over a span of one decade. Could this situation present an existential problem for the BNP?

However, perhaps missing in its calculation was how overwhelming the governmental response would be, and when it came, how BNP would tackle it. Alarmed by the public support for BNP, the ruling party unleashed all sorts of undemocratic and extralegal measures to curb the opposition. The actions post-October 28—most oppressive, by any standard—severely affected the BNP's capacity to continue its programmes. The arrest of the party's secretary general, followed by arrests of many top BNP leaders (and with the rest being kept on the run), literally incapacitated this massive party.

To put it simply: BNP launched a movement to oust AL from power—demanding a caretaker government amounts to that—without adequate preparation, and this is now becoming more and more evident. The BNP failed to reap anything effective from the huge public support that it was able to garner late last year.

BNP also made the fatal mistake of not having a Plan B. Demanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's removal from power was bound to trigger retaliation. There seems to have been no clear thinking on how to survive that. If the purpose was to loosen the incumbents' hold on the election mechanism, there could have been proposals for power-sharing during elections, or select portfolios being given to the opposition or neutral people under some constitutional arrangement agreed to by both sides. Since the role of police is the key during elections, there could have been special proposals for reducing the ruling party's hold on them. Alternative views would have shown voters that BNP was flexible and open to negotiations. Shutting down all prospects of this was another vital mistake on the BNP's part. This is where the "external pressure" that the BNP was counting on felt completely let down. In all the talks that the BNP had with ambassadors, none supported the idea of an election under a caretaker government, while all insisted on the need for a free and fair election, for Bangladesh's own democratic future. BNP did not absorb this message.

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Placing dummies as alternatives disenfranchises voters

It can be argued that AL never really wanted BNP in the poll contest in the first place, and that BNP never realised that its boycott was actually serving the AL's goal of keeping it out of the political process as a whole.

It appears that the biggest opposition party never really conducted any in-depth analysis as to whether a boycott would really serve its long-term interests. One wonders what lessons the BNP learnt from its boycott of the 2014 election, if any. Among many other issues, it can be argued that, had the BNP not boycotted the 2014 election, Khaleda Zia would not have lost her position as the leader of the opposition and perhaps would not have faced persecution and incarceration. Even if that had happened, Begum Khaleda Zia would have been far better placed to fight those cases as the leader of the opposition than as just a political leader. Her eclipse from having an active role in leading the party has had a devastating impact on the BNP. Could this have happened if the party hadn't boycotted the election in 2014? Did it take any of this into account?

This election boycott would be the BNP's second one. There are no instances in our region—perhaps none in other democracies either—of a political party surviving after boycotting two elections over a span of one decade. Could this situation present an existential problem for the BNP?

BNP's approach appears to be that, unless assured of victory, the party deems it of no use to participate in the election—a fatal mistake, in our view. The advantage of being a powerful opposition never seems to have appealed to BNP. It did not consider that the parliament would provide a powerful forum through which to propagate its own policies and visions for the future, and thereby create an image of it as a viable alternative.

The truth is, however sad and damaging it may have been for the growth of parliamentary democracy in Bangladesh, neither of our two big parties ever took the role of being the opposition seriously. Both AL and BNP always wanted power, and never the role of a responsible critic to keep the government in check.

As said earlier, anti-incumbency, a government's failures, widespread corruption, and arrogance have all contributed to a feeling for a need for change, which the BNP failed to build on. It might not have gotten the majority votes to form the next government, but it definitely could have formed a powerful opposition, giving it an effective stage to strive for power in 2029. But such a strategy does not appear to have interested BNP at all. It was an "all or nothing" gambit that led BNP to opt for boycotting the election, for which the country and democracy will have to pay a high price.

Read more

Column by Mahfuz Anam: Towards a 'free and fair' election, indeed

If BNP had decided to participate in the election, there would have been 300 BNP (or, in partnership with others) nominees in every nook and corner of the country campaigning for themselves and exposing AL's corruption, power abuse, and misdeeds. The campaign itself would have held the ruling party to some account and significantly strengthened BNP's hold on the public mind. If nothing else, BNP's campaign itself would have had some sobering effect on the ruling party. Its participation would have encouraged foreign observers to take notice, which definitely would have helped to make our election better.

Today, BNP supporters are nothing more than mere onlookers as village after village prepares for the polls, now buoyed by the participation of AL's "rebel" candidates.

Today, all BNP can do is call hartals that nobody follows, enforce blockades which are nowhere to be seen, and declare mass protests that are practically non-existent. All that the opposition on the streets are able to do is create disruptions, which further raise questions about its success.

What a pitiable state to be in for our second-largest political party.

Mahfuz Anam is the editor and publisher of The Daily Star.

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