The day after

THE 10th Parliamentary election was marked by widespread violence. The voter turnout was abysmally low and voting in a number of polling centres has been suspended. The turmoil prior to, and on the day of the poll, gradually built up to a maelstrom. Many innocent people and political desperados lost their lives.
How long the turbulence will continue is a matter of common concern. There is so much anger in the confrontation that even an incurable optimist may not have enough courage to hope for a new journey marked by political engagement with goodwill and trust. The future cannot be conceived without the sincere participation of the two major actors in constitutional politics. The dour doomsday soothsayers, however, foresee a declaration of emergency followed by a good spanking of the opposition and punishment of war criminals.  
Whatever lies in the future depends on the two principal actors -- AL and BNP -- albeit not with the participation of Jamaat-e-Islami and Jatiya Party.
What is the cause of the antipathy between the two parties? There is not much difference between them. They are centrist parties with emphasis on private sector initiative. AL was a socialist party during Bangabandhu's rule with Soviet Russia as the principal ally. Things have changed greatly since his tragic end, and more so with the liquidation of the Soviet legacy. Nonetheless, India and Russia are considered as allies. AL is a secularist party but will not go against the country's Islamic demographic character.  BNP discarded socialism from the beginning. It emphasises Islamic belief on paper but functions like a secularist party.   
The fundamental difference between the two parties is that AL upholds Bengali language and culture as its principal identity. For BNP both the Bangali and the Islamic identities have a place in Bangladeshi nationalism. The use of theocratic party Jamaat-e-Islami as an ally is a matter of expedience and convenience. For AL, Jamaat-e-Islami is not a natural ally. It was a matter of expedience when AL enlisted its support for caretaker government (CTG) movement during 1994-'96 movement.
It can be said that interaction between the two parties is not an insurmountable divide of intractable nature. In a parliamentary democracy, if the principal contenders do not engage each other it is a negation of democratic practice. What holds Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia back? Is it the difference over the nature of the interim government under which the national poll was to be held?
Sheikh Hasina would not go beyond the constitutional process. The CTG system was annulled by the Supreme Court. The parliament discarded it through an amendment. However, the Supreme Court annulment verdict did not altogether rule out the applicability of CTG. Instead, it proposed an interim government formed on 50:50 basis, i.e. equal representations of the government and the opposition, that retains the incumbent prime minister. Fine indeed! But the prime minister would reserve the right to overrule instructions of any member of the cabinet.
The PM's gesture of offering any ministry to the opposition was praiseworthy but with the bucket having no bottom. Khaleda Zia, on the other hand, would not have anything but a CTG. In 1994-'96 BNP opposed CTG concept. In 2013-'14 Sheikh Hasina would not have anything to do with CTG. If this is the difference then there is hope of consensus on holding 11th national election.
In a democracy, the concept of inducting an un-elected government to conduct the national poll that leads to the formation of an elected government is not above question. The election machinery aided by administration and law enforcing agencies, unless of course not brazenly politicised, is there to hold the election. That is what countries with well-regarded democratic practice do. Bangladesh should have done in 1996 what the government in power stubbornly stuck to for the 2014 national poll. BNP government spoilt it in 1996 with Magura bye-election. While AL, by wholesale politicisation of every wing of administration, has lost its credibility as a fair overseer. The chief election commissioner looked on woefully without his moral robe.
Over the years, confidence in the moral probity of each and every government was unwholesomely compromised. The bitter harvest is the present impasse. During BNP's last tenure the August 21 carnage was a wound that soured relations forever.  
On the other hand BNP, was brutalised remorselessly during AL's last tenure. Its leaders from all tiers were packed into jails on several occasions. Some went missing and are still untraceable. Their party office was vandalised in a fierce manner. The editor of their party paper has been behind bars for a long time.
The 10th national poll was held with more than half of its voters (over 4 and a half crores) being deprived of voting opportunity. A countrywide election of 100 million voters involves quite a large expenditure. It can be in hundreds of crores of Taka. That is people's money.
The most important prayer will be for the slugfest to end and a way forward charted by the contending parties in trust and goodwill. No one gives political parties the charter to cash in on the patience of the people!

The writer is a former advertising professional.