Denying free, fair polls, the government has practically disenfranchised people

What is next? This is the question everybody is posing in the country after the ruling Awami League swept through the deeply flawed 12th parliamentary elections on January 7 boycotted by the opposition.

Even some foreign media, including the Indian ones, echoed this same question being quite oblivious of the fact that voters loudly boycotted this election and democracy has not been served as the election outcome is not of people’s choosing.

Common sense tells that for winning in any election voters’ turnout must be more than 60 per cent, but the EC ‘showed’ 41.8 per cent this time.

The actual turnout of voters was very minimal, some suggesting that it could be below ten or even five per cent.

That the election would not be democratic was clear when BNP had declared that it would not participate in the election.

In the face of the crisis, ideally, it was a democratic duty for the government to have dialogue with the BNP and other parties for effectively arriving at a solution regarding the election-time government acceptable to all.

The very definition of democracy makes it mandatory to have all parties and individuals of all ideologies and shades of opinions in the election fray if they want to join the election.

Now, BNP is a major party in Bangladesh and without its participation the election would not be participatory, free and fair. That was very much clear.

In the one-sided arrangement, the election took place with those unignorable facts on the ground on the Election Day such as very low voters’ turnout, casting of false votes by people of all ages.

It was seen that underage children below ten years cast votes in the full presence of presiding and polling officers, and polling agents.

The CEC himself said that he had not witnessed polling agents of other candidates other than AL ones.

It was no election, but a mockery of what is universally accepted as exercise of people’s right to vote.

The truth is people of Bangladesh have been practically disenfranchised this way for more than a decade as the AL government consistently kept the opposition out of the election competition by not meeting its demand of holding elections under an acceptable election time government.

The AL knows that in a free, fair and participatory poll, its candidates would have been routed.

That is why it did not give in to the demand of the opposition in 2014. After facing criticisms for not joining polls, as BNP participated in the 2018 general election; predawn voting, rigging and intimidation of the opposition candidates and their agents marked the election.

Then again in 2024 it was repetition of 2014 election, but with ‘dummy’ candidates of AL in absence of the opposition.

The demand for a free and fair election is not over. It remains. However the Election Commission put voters’ turnout at 41.8 per cent to show that at least supporters of AL cast their votes, it is everybody’s knowledge that voters by their loud absence boycotted this election that was in fact a meaningless exercise of spending public money.