The ruling Awami League has started its electoral activities for the 12th parliamentary elections likely to be held in January while the leaders and activists of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies keep facing arrest, raid and prosecution.
The Awami League formed its election management committee headed by the party president and prime minister Sheikh Hasina on November 9.
After the formation of the committee, AL general secretary Obaidul Quader told media on the same day that the nomination seekers could buy the party nomination forms from the AL central office on Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka after the announcement of the election schedule.
‘The price of one nomination form is Tk 50,000,’ he said.
He told party leaders and activists on the next day that they had two tasks before the election — to prepare for the polls and to fight against the opposition movement.
The BNP and its allies, on the other hand, continue movement for ousting the government for holding a free, fair and inclusive election under a non-party neutral government.
The police arrested more than 11,000 BNP leaders and activists, including its secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, and senior leaders Mirza Abbas, Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, Shahjahan Omar, Shamsuzzaman Dudu and media cell convener Zahir Uddin Swapan.
The AL effort to bring some political parties into its fold has, however, not yet been successful.
Meanwhile, experts believed that the political situation did not show any level playing field for the next general election as the ruling party enjoying full freedom and opposition leaders and activists are on either in jail or the run.
They urged the AL and the BNP to hold a dialogue on how to make the election a free, fair, peaceful and participatory one.
‘It is not a level playing field where the ruling party will enjoy complete freedom and the opposition have to swim with their limbs tied with ropes,’ local government expert Tofail Ahmed told New Age on Sunday.
He said that such a political atmosphere would not uphold the country’s democracy in the days to come.
Retired Dhaka University professor Abul Kashem Fazlul Haq feared that the next election might not take place on time for the mounting pressure from the west and its friends to hold the election in a free and fair manner.
The politics turned into an exhibition for muscle power as the ruling party continues to get benefit from the law enforcement agencies and administrations and enjoy ultimate impunity, the academic added.
Chief election commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal said that the next parliamentary election would be held on time at any cost due to constitutional obligations.
The Election Commission secretary Md Jahangir Alam said that the election schedule would be announced soon as per the constitutional provisions what the CEC told media on November 9 after holding meeting with president Mohammed Shahabuddin.
Asked whether the commission is pleased over the political environment, Jahanagir said, ‘You have to understand two things. Political issue is completely political. We have the constitutional obligations to hold elections on time.’
The Awami League is adamant to hold the election under the party government while the BNP and most other opposition parties remain strict to the demand for holding the election under a caretaker government.
At a virtual briefing on Friday, BNP senior joint secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi alleged that the government was trying to hold an unilateral election like that of 2014 and 2018 though repression against the opposition.
‘They [government] have sent almost all top opposition leaders in prisons. They want to hold a farcical unilateral election after sending more opposition leaders behind the bars,’ he said.
The United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom keep urging the government for ensuring a free, fair and peaceful election.
AL presidium member Abdur Rahman said, ‘There is no question of one-sided election. If anyone is involved in extremism and violence and does anything to hinder public security, they will be in jail or on the run.’
If the arrested BNP leaders and activists are proved innocent, they will be released by the court, he said.
The political situation turned worse after the police and AL activists clashed with BNP people that foiled the BNP’s scheduled rally in the capital on October 28, when a police constable and a BNP activist were killed.
The BNP and other opposition announced dawn-to-dusk strike on October 28.
Following the general strike, the BNP and its allies have announced four-phase blockades and the BNP central office in the capital’s Naya Paltan and its chairperson’s Gulshan office have remains locked since October 28.
BNP offices and house of the leaders and activists have allegedly been vandalised in many places across the country.
Asked how BNP would join polls as most of the leaders and activists either in jail or on the run to avoid arrests, AL presidium member Kamrul Islam said that BNP leaders should join polls apologising to the people for their ‘criminal activities’.
‘It is not possible to create a level playing field releasing criminals to participate in polls. The BNP has no other option, but to join polls,’ he added.
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