Nominations: Beyond political career

Dr. Syed Nesar Ahmad Rumy :

The 12th general election is scheduled to be held on January 7. Major and de facto opposition and its allies have declared that they would not participate in the election under the present structure of the electioneering process. And for that they are now on the streets.

Their presence is not visible in that sense as their central office and district offices are under lock and key.

But the people of Bangladesh feel their influence in social and economic life all the time for various reasons.

Actually their presence is more understandable by the deliberations and talks of ruling party high-ups to the media.

Moreover, some leaders of the opposition on the streets give directives virtually from the unknown places.

Ruling party, their allies, some newly registered parties have already declared their candidacies.

As per schedule of the election the official campaigning will start after 17th of December.

But by this time an unofficial campaigning such as big processions with motorcade and motorbikes have already started.

As the major opposition is not participating in the forthcoming election scheduled to be held on 7th January 2024, many aspirants of other than career politicians are seeking nominations from the ruling party and many of them have already got the nominations.

This trend of getting nominations is also visible in our neighboring country. In this context we can cite the example of Trinomul Congress of West Bengal.

A number of film stars got nominations from Trinomul Congress in last Loksava and Bidhansava elections and many of them were elected and they are taking part in the debates of Loksava and Bidhansava sessions.

Actually, many of us think that this trend is not healthy sign of political parties.

People do politics because they want to do something better for society, and in other sense, they want to take part in the governmental system in the country.

They must have aims and objectives to be part of governing the country.

That is why they take risk and stake from their early days. Doing own business and profession for their survival they organize the party in their localities.

In this way they build or make their political career. In the crisis time of their party they are generally used to go with their party decisions.

But in time of elections many aspirants other than the regular party men seek nominations of strong political parties.

For their nationwide image and popularity as sportsman, singer or film star they seek party nominations. In true sense it is not a fair deal.

Considering their national image and popularity party leadership might be tempted to give them nominations as they might think the proposed candidate has ample chances to win the race if getting nomination.

In this way, singers, players, film stars get nominations. If they are so popular they could run as independent candidate.

Why they intrude parties before election to deprive the original party men who are always with the party in party’s crisis moment? This situation may be called as inherent weakness of big political parties in Bangladesh.

If they lose in the election, there is a chance that they might not associate them with the party later.

But it is assumed the true activists of the party must stay with the party if his/her party is defeated in the election.

So political career, loyalty to the party in crisis moment are not helping them to get tickets for contesting in the parliamentary election.

For that reason, we can say idealism and dedication are not getting proper weightage from the party high-command, at least in these cases. So a messy environment appears in the ruling party.

Now the ruling party has given signal to its aspirants other than the official candidates that they may contest in the forthcoming general election as independent candidates.

Accordingly, many of them have filed nomination papers to the returning officers’ offices.

This appears another dimension in this time of forthcoming general election.

What will be the aftereffect of this policy of ruling party after 7th January is also a matter of discussion now.

Maybe some of those so-called independent candidates might win the race defeating official candidates of ruling party.

If that is the case, then what will be the fate of party discipline after 7th January.

Definitely ruling party will face a major messy environment and it is assumed by many of us.

We see in the different TV channels’ news that many official candidates, independent candidates from ruling party submitted nomination papers smilingly with a large crowd.

Observers say it is clear violation of the electoral code of conduct, though some of them have got show-cause notices from election commission.

But it is believed by many of us that the show-causes might not have that much effect on them.

And really whether they take these show-causes seriously are very much unclear.

Now this is the political scenario regarding forthcoming general election in Bangladesh.

A number of political parties including a major opposition are not participating in the forthcoming general election.

Whether we like it or not it is the reality. So it is the apprehension that a sizeable number of voters may not go to the polling stations as they will not find their candidates of likings.

For that reason, this situation has ample chance to be termed as truncated election of democracy.

The ideal situation is that all the major political parties should join electioneering process truly.

Don’t we have anybody who can take initiatives to mitigate this crisis so that people can vote their candidates of liking fearlessly and true career politicians get nominations from the political parties?

(The writer is a contributor to The New Nation. )