As the dust settles on election season with the last day of campaigning officially ending yesterday morning, the street rallies were complemented by a digital battle for the ballot, where political parties poured crores of taka into thousands of Facebook ads.
Many of these advertisers were masked as news outlets to bypass voter skepticism.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel.This analysis included only advertisers who spent more than $100 on Meta ads in the last 30 days, because Meta does not disclose spending amounts below that threshold. As a result, the actual volume of spending and the total number of election-related ads are likely significantly higher than the figures reflected in this report.
Advertisers employed two approaches – publishing fewer but more expensive ads designed for broader reach, and releasing cheaper ads with a high frequency.
Operating through a network of 136 distinct pages, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has deployed at least 5,179 advertisements with a total expenditure of $96,171 (about Tk 1.15 crore).
Jamaat-e-Islami and the 11-party alliance utilised at least 104 pages to run 2,792 advertisements, spending at least Tk 85 lakh.
Of this, Tk 4 lakh was spent by its alliance members Khelafat Majlish and Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish, Tk 3.8 lakh by National Citizen Party and about Tk 1 lakh by Amar Bangladesh (AB) Party.
Independent candidates operated across 33 pages, spending about Tk 22 lakh to run 843 advertisements.
Thirteen Islami Andolon Bangladesh pages ran 432 ads for Tk 9 lakh.
Of the biggest 20 advertisers, 12 belong to the BNP and six to the Jamaat.
However, although more of the big spenders are from the BNP, the number one spender among everyone was Dhaka News 24 Online, a Facebook page masquerading as a news organisation that is actually a mouthpiece for Jamaat-e-Islami, disseminating ads asking for votes for Daripalla.
Dhaka News 24 Online spent about Tk 11.17 lakh running 46 ads asking for votes for the party.
The second-highest spender was also a page calling itself a news page named “Dhaka 17 News”, which only publishes posts about Jamaat’s Dhaka-17 candidate SM Khaliduzzaman.
It spent Tk 9.73 lakh to post 56 ads asking for votes for the candidate and the party symbol, using hashtags like “#HealingDhaka17”.
The third-highest spender is Humam Quader Chowdhury, BNP candidate for Chattogram-7 (Rangunia). He spent nearly Tk 8 lakh and advertised 102 times.
Humam’s ads centre around his electoral promises for his constituency, Rangunia, and content about his persecution during the Awami-League regime as a survivor of enforced disappearance.
Humam is closely followed by Jamaat’s official Facebook campaign page, “Cholo Eksathe Gori Bangladesh,” which spent about Tk 7.6 lakh for 65 ads.
The most prominent narrative propagated by the page is about Jamaat’s firm stance on extortion, running short documentaries about the party’s plan to reform extortionists.
In comparison, BNP’s official campaign page “Shobar Agey Bangladesh” spent Tk 2.4 lakh on 113 ads, while its official central media cell spent a further Tk 2 lakh on 26 ads.
The highest spending independent candidate was MAH Salim from Dhaka-15. He spent Tk 6.7 lakh on 66 ads.
Dhaka-16 Islami Andolon Bangladesh (IAB) candidate Zahirul Islam is the highest spender from his party. He spent Tk 5.37 lakh for 205 ads.
Jamaat also used another “news outlet” called Peoples Time 24 BD to disseminate ads asking for votes. The page spent more than Tk 2.3 lakh to run 39 ads for the Islamist party.
However, Jamaat is hardly the only party to use “News” pages to advertise.
VOD “Voice Of Democracy” Bangla, which runs a news page with a goal to “produce reliable news coverage” sponsored ads worth 1.8 lakh for Ishraque Hossain, the BNP candidate for Dhaka-6.
Of the top 20 most frequent advertisers, 13 are affiliated with the BNP, three with Jamaat and one is from the IAB.
Over the past 30 days, BNP chief Tarique Rahman ran seven ads worth $385 (Tk 46,200), which were paid for by the party.
During the same period, Jamaat Ameer Shafiqur Rahman ran 30 ads from his official page worth Tk 3.72 lakh, paid by the page itself. An additional 82 ads worth Tk 6.72 lakh were run by four pages on his behalf with names like “Safe and Humane Dhaka-15”.
