FREE and fair elections are the foundation of democracy, and they allow for the free and just societies we all want to live in. We want to have a voice in determining the future direction of the country and in shaping the lives we live. And we want our voice to count exactly the same as everyone else’s.
As a norm, stable democracies work under a set of rules that specify how policymakers are to be chosen by the electorate. These rules, whether embodied in a single document such as a constitution, a body of legislation, or just accepted practices, shape both the context and consequences of democratic elections. Democracy presupposes that individuals are the best judges of their own interests and are more likely than anyone else to want to protect those interests.
We must remember that elections enable voters to select leaders to govern and to hold them accountable for their performance while in office. Accountability can be undermined when elected leaders do not care whether they are re-elected or when, for any reason, one party or a coalition is so dominant that there is effectively no choice for voters among alternative candidates, parties, or policies. There is scope for thoughts to examine our current political context in this regard.
There is another pertinent element for us to reflect upon. We are in a political environment where elections tend to be held to achieve the goal of a government in power merely to legitimise their continuation, thus denying the people the right to exercise their free will to choose their representatives. As cases in point from several Southeast nations, we can point to cases like Cambodia, where elections are openly and outright rigged and opposition politicians are excluded. In Vietnam and Laos, elections are limited to government parties that are given permission to field candidates. In Thailand, Myanmar, and Singapore, elections are designed to maximise the outcomes for the political establishment. This includes limits on who may run, the limitation of some seats to specific groups, and the structure of the resultant legislature. Thus, in most South-east Asian nations, history shows that these governments hold elections to legitimise their government as ostensibly reflecting the will of the people but do not actually permit the will of the people to express itself. How do we see our own practice of election in the mirror?
While elections are no guarantee of democracy, as cited above in the cases of the Southeast Asian region, it is also true that democracy does not exist without elections. Time magazine, in its report this month, goes on record observing: ‘In 2024, more than half the world’s population will go to polls —4.2 billion citizens across approximately 65 countries in what, from a distance, at least appears to be a stirring spectacle of self-government. At closer range, however, the picture is cloudier, and warning lights flash from the murk.’ Staffan Lindberg of Swedish think tank V-Dem says that the worry is that ‘so many have now empowered leaders or parties with anti-democratic leanings.’ In the recently held election in Bangladesh, we have successfully exemplified the case for an anti-democratic practice through the entire process of the election, all in the name of democracy.
The first aspect to point out is that in our country, space for political competition and open, future-looking debates involving the voters has disappeared. The two major parties that have been governing the country for the past five decades, excluding the period under military rule, have been involved in verbal, personalised attacks, hurling abuse, and instigating violence, resulting in the deaths of several hundred citizens. We have been observing that the parties that have been governing the country were mostly involved in political meddling, manipulations of the election processes, use of threats and intimidations by uniformed personnel, unlawful abductions of political opponents, illegal killings, and politically inspired jail sentences. Transparency International in Bangladesh has been routinely publishing these data for the past two decades, with total disregard by the ruling authorities. The widely accepted view about the independence of the Election Commission is another major hurdle to the practice of democracy. The January 2024 national election has been widely considered, to quote an editorial message, a ‘non-participatory, non-inclusive, and managed election’ that has dealt a blow to the institution of democracy. Once again, like the 2014 and 2018 elections, this one too is now lacking legitimacy.
The election suffered badly from a serious lack of voter participation. Against the historic rate of 70–80 per cent of votes cast in the past elections, this time it was, according to the Election Commission, only 40 per cent. Independent observers put the figure at 15–20 per cent. So we now have a government elected by a minority rather than a majority. The noteworthy aspect was the way the election process was ‘managed’ by one party. In the absence of one major political party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which boycotted the election on the ground that the national election be held under a caretaker government, which the ruling party was not willing to consider, the election was fought between Awami League candidates and others who were themselves AL members but did not secure official nominations from the party. However, they were not expelled from the party for breaching the party rule in matters of election nominations. As a result, all the members who won were essentially from the Awami League. The other small party, called Jatiya Party got the Awami League to spare some seats to enable the party to secure seats, once again an arrangement of convenience.
The candidates from this arranged system did not have a concrete agenda to inform the voters what their intentions and programme would be to improve the life and living conditions of the population. In the pre-election phase of campaigning, in almost all cases, the candidates distributed leaflets asking the electorate to vote for them without giving them a reason why they should vote for them.
There were instances where ethnic minorities were intimidated and threatened by candidates to vote. There is no law in Bangladesh that makes voting a compulsory obligation. It only makes our democracy that much polluted, and it only makes our people lose faith in the institution.
The low voter turnout became another sign of the weakness of our marred election. The Election Commission’s claim, even if accepted, of 40 per cent votes cast is truly a reflection of our democracy’s health.
Bangladesh citizens feel that:
— There is no democracy in the country, despite the political establishment’s claims.
— The political parties are disconnected from the hopes and aspirations of the people.
— The basic tenets of a democratic society are yet to see the light of day in Bangladesh.
— There is no culture of dialogue among the parties, and it is a top-down culture that always rules, not the bottom-up system.
— The party in power does not have a platform or programme for economic and social growth, and people are unsure of what to expect from the government.
— The parliament is an ineffective institution in the absence of a strong opposition presence.
— The country is grappling with the serious threat of a downward spiral in its economic management and future.
— The time has come for the two major political parties to shun all differences, which are mostly at the personal level, and come together to seriously and constructively address the national problems.
— There is no other option available to the nation.
Humayun Kabir (kabirruhi@gmail.com) is a former United Nations official at the United Nations Headquarters.
New Age