Credible 1Oth parliamentary election is crucial

The 10th parliamentary election in Bangladesh will  hopefully be arranged either in the last quarter of 2013 or in early 2014. Major stakeholders such as political parties and Election Commission (EC) are now taking preparations from their own perspectives for this election. Political parties have already started working on candidate nomination, drafting election manifesto, strategies of electoral alliance etc. On the other hand, EC is working for finalising electoral roll, delimitation of constituencies, reforming the legal framework and other pre-election activities. CSOs/NGOs and development partners are found worried about the mode of election-time government and trying to put pressure on the government so that a credible 10th parliamentary election could be arranged.
Credible elections are at the centre of credible democratisation process. Although elections alone cannot guarantee democracy, credible elections help not only to strengthen that democracy, but also to legitimise governments, as well as effectively safeguard the right of citizens to exercise their political rights. There are international standards of a credible election, some of those have been discussed below considering the current context of Bangladesh.
Building confidence
A credible election must have a high degree of confidence of all stakeholders. An election management body (EMB) can gain this high degree of confidence through its planning and operation. It must show openness in every step of electoral process. It has to prove itself neutral in every step of its work. It has to demonstrate its ability to conduct technically sound election as well as to display greater transparency and accountabiliy to the voters. Creating an accurate and inclusive electoral roll, ensuring representativeness and impartiality in delimitation of constituency, guaranteeing level playing field for candidates and parties and on the whole acting in a non-partisan manner by the EMB are some of the ways which bring confidence in the electoral process. Moreover, regular consultation and communications with political parties, CSOs/NGOs and other stakeholders also helps to bring confidence. Furthermore, fruitful collaboration between domestic observers and EMBs increases the level of transparency in the electoral process and strengthens public confidence in it.
Participation by citizens and political parties
One of the fundamental ingredients of a credible election is the participation of citizens as well as political parties qualified to take part in elections. Thus, an election, if conducted without the participation of a major political party is not considered as credible one. The UN in its principles declared that "political contestants (parties, candidates and supporters of positions on referenda) have vested interests in the electoral process through their rights to be elected and to participate directly in government."
An election without a major political party causes low voter turnout which decreases the credibility of election. In Bangladesh, the 1986 parliamentary election, in which BNP didn't participate, experienced 60.31% voter turnout while in 1988 election in which neither AL nor BNP took part had 51.81% turnout.
On the other hand, according to Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU), the 1996 (Feb) election which is known as one-party election experienced only 10-15% actual turnout. An election having low turnout does not reflect the will of the people but "the will of the people shall form the basis of the authority of government" which is established by Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is because elections are essentially an expression of popular sovereignty and affirmation of civil liberties and political rights. Voter participation enhances the integrity of the election and the legitimacy of its outcome.
In Bangladesh there are 38 registered parties. Among them BNP is a big party which won twice in the elections held under caretaker government (CG). It has an alliance of 18 parties. This alliance led by BNP has already declared that it would not participate in the next election under political government, even not under the current EC. In order to make election acceptable to all stakeholders, it is very important to bring all the parties including BNP in the election.
Keeping the neutrality of the temporary poll officials in conducting an election, the role of EC, unlike other election management bodies, is to do the overall administration of election. EC mostly depends on temporary poll officials/workers such as returning officers, assistant returning officers, presiding officers, assistant presiding officers, polling officials and security forces. In the last election, except law enforcing agency, the number of such kind of officials/workers was 11,34,841. These officials/workers were recruited from the public, autonomous and private sectors. Fair, transparent and credible elections mostly depend on the neutrality of these officials/workers. But, the psychology nurtured by these temporary poll officials/workers is that they don't want to go against government in power. As the last four elections held under CG, they worked without fear. Moreover, most of these officials are recruited from the surrounding areas and are well known by the local terrorists who want to do election engineering. Under political government, these temporary officials may get different types of threats, even death threats from those terrors. So it would be a great challenge for the EC to keep the neutrality of the temporary poll officials/workers. In order to overcome this issue, EC has to invent a special mechanism and ensure security of these officials.
Fighting electoral corruption
Money always plays a big role in Bangladesh election. Buying and selling of nominations, crossing the election expenditure limit, vote buying, purchasing influential bigshots are some of the major areas where huge money is invested. Even after revising the RPO in 2008 and incorporating some comprehensive clauses in the law, EC was not found successful in controlling electoral corruption.
In the 9th parliamentary election some "88 candidates spent Tk 4,420,979 on an average during the legal time frame for election campaign. The highest amount spent by a candidate was Tk 28,100,000, while the lowest amount spent was Tk 434,000. Keeping in mind the average expenditure limit, the candidates overspent Tk 3,105,859 on an average. The elected candidates (40) spent Tk 4,569,804 on an average, whereas the defeated candidates (48) spent on an average Tk 5,865,783." An extra expenditure by the candidates has two implications - this is a violation of law as well as it destroys the level playing field which makes hindrance of electing a good candidate having less money which ultimately results in a non-credible election. Strong monitoring with enforcement is vital to fight electoral corruption.
Mode of government during election
In many countries of the world, EMB works under a ministry and it conducts credible elections under political government. But a free and fair election under political government depends on democratic political culture. Unfortunately, we do not have such kind of tolerant political culture. As a result, the mode of government during the time of election is very significant in Bangladesh. Since independence, the country has experienced nine parliamentary elections. According to IPU the campaign of the 1st parliamentary election held in 1973 'was marred by violence and accusations of voter intimidation, voting day was relatively quiet'. The 2nd parliamentary election held in 1979, 'was rigged in favour of BNP candidates: corrupt and irregular practices had been perpetrated by BNP candidates, their supporters and polling agents and assigned government officials when things turned difficult for the ruling party candidates. Electoral voice was turned by manipulation in favour of BNP candidates'. The 3rd parliamentary election held in 1986 was marred by widespread violence. 'Voter intimidation and fraud appeared to favour the political party supported by a martial-law government. There were no reliable counts of the casualties (New York Times, 08 May 1986). Reporters in different parts of the country found widespread evidence that gangs, most of them working for the Government-backed party, stole ballots or prevented people from voting, often by force. The 1988 parliamentary election, the 4th one, 'proved instrumental in destroying the acceptability of election to obtain people's mandate. At every stage, Ershad implemented the blueprint of farcical election'. Thus, “till 1991 no general election in Bangladesh has been universally considered or acclaimed to be free and fair. All the general elections held between 1973 and 1988 had been more or less characterised with large-scale manipulation, rigging, massive exercise of coercion and muscle power, bribery, expenditure of unusually high amount of money by the governments, political parties, groups and individuals.”
Except February, 1996 election, the last four parliamentary elections in Bangladesh were held under CG since 1991 and all these four elections were considered as free, fair and credible by the international and national observers. Moreover, in 2006, National Democratic Institute (NDI) in its pre-election assessment report made a comment that “Bangladesh's caretaker government is a unique institution in the development of democracy. Bangladeshis have reason to take pride in this innovation. The caretaker government arose out of the specific conditions of the 1991 and 1995/96 elections. Its purpose is to ensure no one party has access to state resources, physical and human, in such a way as to influence the outcome of the election. The caretaker government model in the past has succeeded in instilling public confidence in the electoral process and results.” The 2008 election has, however been certified as the "best election in the country's history".
So, in Bangladesh CG itself played a catalyst's role in making elections fair, transparent and credible. But, we don't have any CG right now and till date we don't know the exact mode of election-time government which can ensure EC to arrange a credible election after demolishing the CG after long 23 years. The  political climate within which elections take place largely determines the credibility and legitimacy of elections. In an environment where there is political fear, intimidation and violence, and in a society where there is no respect for rule of law, or where governments have no transparency or accountability, it is just difficult to conduct credible elections.
Elections can further democracy, development, human rights and security, or undermine them. Credible elections are central for maintaining peace and stability, and they provide the mandate for democratic governance. The will of the people of a country is ensured only through genuine democratic elections. To make an election credible, along with EMB, the state has to take all necessary and appropriate measures to ensure transparency in the entire electoral process, otherwise election might not be a credible one and could bring curse instead of democracy.

The writer is a Head, Media and Communication Department, Independent University of Bangladesh.