Small parties, big success

A boycott of the vote by the main opposition BNP and, alongside, the favour of the ruling Awami League has earned the Workers Party and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal a huge success in the just-concluded election.
Both parties could manage to ensure the presence of their highest ever representatives in the new parliament.
The one-sided polls also gave the newly floated Bangladesh Nationalist Front (BNF) and Bangladesh Torikat Federation a taste of victory as both the parties secured one seat each without much effort.
Since the restoration of democracy in 1991, the Workers Party has been able to win only once. That was a seat at the 1991 election on its own symbol "hammer". In the two consecutive elections, its candidates suffered humiliating defeats.
But fortune smiled after a long break when the party relied on Awami League's support and used AL's symbol 'boat" in the 2008 polls. The party won two seats.
This time, the party backed 18 candidates and six of them won. Party Chief Rashed Khan Menon and Fazle Hossain Badshah were elected unchallenged while two other candidates won by using AL's symbol.
The remaining two candidates sailed through the election with the party symbol as the AL did not nominate their candidate in those two seats.
The situation for the Hasanul Haq Inu-led Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) is almost the same.
The party contested the previous elections in 1991, 1996 and 2001 with its own electoral symbol "flaming torch". But it failed to manage any seat, with most of its candidates losing their security deposits.
Finally, JSD saw a ray of hope when it got AL support to contest 2008 polls. Boarding AL's boat, it won three seats at that election.
In Sunday's election, the party had its highest ever success thanks to the AL's generosity.
Fielding 23 candidates, the party won in five seats. Of them, Inu and two others were elected unopposed.
The remaining two candidates won the polls with their own electoral symbol, challenging the candidates of Jatiya Party.
BNF was floated just before the 10th parliamentary polls despite widespread controversy. The party fielded 22 candidates but only one -- party convenor SM Abul Kalam Azad -- won from a constituency in Dhaka.
It became possible for Azad to win the seat when Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad quit the race.
The history of Bangladesh Torikat Federation is also not that old. The party fielded 31 candidates in the 2008 polls but all of them lost their security deposits.
In Sunday's election, the party posted three candidates. Two of them, including the party president Nazibul Bashar Maizbhandari, used the AL's electoral symbol.
Nazibul came out successful in his constituency while re-polling will be held in the other constituency, where the party candidate had contested, using the AL symbol.
Voting in some polling centres across the country was suspended due to a deterioration of law and order.

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