Insist on a caretaker government conducting the elections expecting that it would not be able to squash violence before and during the polling

Elections to Bangladesh’s Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament), scheduled to be held on January 7, have attracted global attention. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the principal political opponent of the ruling Awami League led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has announced that it will boycott the elections because these are not being held under an independent caretaker government. In a despatch, Reuter’s Ruma Paul has quoted the BNP’s Senior Joint Secretary-General, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, as saying, “We reject with utter disgust the schedule announced by the spineless Election Commission to take away democracy and the voting rights of the people through another farce (sic) election like in the past at the behest of Sheikh Hasina.”

According to the BNP, its boycott will deprive the elections of legitimacy. The fact is that the decision not to contest has been the BNP’s: the Awami League government did not prevent it from participating. These elections will, therefore, lack legitimacy only if the grounds for the BNP’s boycott are justified. Hence, a further question: are there genuine reasons for believing that the elections will not be free and fair unless conducted by a caretaker government?

Consider the results of the last three general elections. The parliamentary elections of 2014 and 2019 were held under Awami League governments. The BNP contested in the former but not in the latter. In 2014, the Awami League and its allies won 245 out of the 300 directly elected seats in the parliament, with the Awami League winning 234. In 2019, the Awami League-led alliance won 288 of the 300 seats, with the Awami League winning 259. The BNP and its allies have alleged that both elections were rigged, with many arguing that Sheikh Hasina’s party and its allies could not otherwise have won such massive majorities.

The argument falls flat if one considers the results of the 2008 parliamentary elections held under a caretaker government. The Awami League and its allies had won 263 out of the 300 seats at stake, with the Awami League victorious in 230. One may argue that things have changed since then and that the Awami League government, which has lost popularity, has unleashed a wave of repression, arresting a huge number of BNP workers, and even some top leaders, to cripple the party’s campaign machinery. These arrests, however, have to be seen in their context. For over two decades, Bangladesh has been in the throes of large-scale violence unleashed by the BNP and its fundamentalist Islamist allies---including first the Jama’at-e-Islami Bangladesh, and then its reincarnation, the Bangladesh Jama’at-e-Islami.

Simultaneously, there was a surge in fundamentalist Islamist terrorist strikes. The Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami-Bangladesh (HUJIB), Jama’at-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), terrorist organisations all, had grown very strong when the BNP-Jama’at coalition government was in power from 2001 to 2006. Their suppression following intense international pressure, has been followed by the rise of two other terrorist organisations-- Ansar-al Islam, earlier known as Ansarullah Bangla Team, affiliated to Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), and Daesh, affiliated to the parent Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). They have played a major role in the murder of bloggers, which began with the killing of Ahmed Rajib Haider in Dhaka on February 15, 2013. Other killings followed. Those murdered included not only bloggers but LGBT activists, Shias, Hindus and academics — indeed, all opposed to religious bigotry and supportive of humanism, secularism and rationalism.

The fundamentalist Islamist terrorist groups are bitterly opposed to Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League for acting resolutely against terrorism, particularly after the dastardly attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka on July 1, 2016, in which 20 persons, including 18 foreigners and women, were savagely killed along with five terrorists killed by Bangladeshi Army commandos. There is reason to believe that these elements have been active in the violence the BNP has unleashed, demanding that the forthcoming elections be held under a caretaker government. In the absence of strong action, those responsible for the violence who remain active can create widespread disorder on January 7 to intimidate people, particularly Hindus, into not voting. The resultant poor percentage of voting can then be cited to claim that people have boycotted the elections, which, therefore, have been farcical. The success of their efforts would depend on how strongly Bangladesh’s Election Commission, which will conduct the elections, deals with their violence. Firm action would doubtless trigger loud allegations of democracy being slaughtered. These have to be ignored if elections are to be free and fair.

Finally, did the BNP insist on a caretaker government conducting the elections expecting that the latter would not be able to squash violence before and during the polling? It might have thought that the caretaker government, under pressure to show that it was independent and not favouring the Awami League, would hesitate to take strong action. It might also have been believed that the United States’ announcement that it will impose visa restrictions on Bangladeshis responsible for, or complicit in, undermining the democratic election process in Bangladesh, may inhibit it from acting with the necessary firmness. All this is doubtless speculation. But speculations sometimes lead to facts.

(The writer is a consultant editor with the Pioneer, views are personal)