The BNP knows very well from its bitter and first-hand experience of one-sided election in 1996 that the Awami League-led 14-party alliance cannot hold on to power for too long after a polls without participation of a major player.
A number of senior leaders told this correspondent that they had achieved what they opted for. The election has already sparked off controversy with 154 candidates elected unopposed.
Now if they can ensure poor voter presence on the voting day it will provoke more controversy, they said.
On the prime minister’s statement that her government would dissolve the 10th parliament and hold a fresh election if the BNP cut ties with Jamaat-e-Islami, stop killings and violence, BNP leaders said it was nothing but a ploy to hold a farcical elections.
The BNP is now analysing the action programmes taken up and devised by the then opposition Awami League ahead of the 15th February, 1996 elections.
They are also studying the pre-election programmes of Awami League in a bid to thwart the January 22, 2007 election and antagonise people against the polls, said an insider.
The BNP with the administrative assistance was able to hold the elections on February 15 in 1996 though it was forced to cancel it in the face of resistance from the Awami League-led campaign but it failed to hold the polls in 2007.
From the experiences of these two events the BNP is drawing up its next course of movement strategies, the insider said.
“The proposed election of 5 January is already turned into a farce. If there is a second example anywhere in the world in which majority of the parliaments have been elected to the house without going through any election proves. This reminds me of the time when a president was ‘deemed’ to have been elected as the president of Bangladesh without any election taking place whatsoever. This election is just as absurd as that one,” Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, party’s standing committee member, told the Dhaka Tribune.
Moyeen, also a former minister, said: “The democracy right now in shamble, the avenue created for landing up once again into the BAKSAL system under a different name. This election does not exist for any practical purpose for the people of Bangladesh nor for anyone outside the country. The prime minister’s recent statement in this respect is by itself a confession that the proposed 10th parliament is a futile exercise so that it has to be disbanded.”
Khaleda Zia is likely to call upon the various professionals to non-cooperate the government terming it illegal though she is frustrated over the senior leaders’ performance in the movement but still hopeful of the movement’s success, said another senior leader.
BNP chairperson’s Adviser Khandakar Mahbub Hossain also said the BNP Chairperson might take to the street within a few days to intensify the ongoing movement.
Before that she is likely to address a press conference to relay her message to people, said a number of senior leaders.
Issuing a note of warning, Mahbub said if the government does not suspend the “one-sided elections” then the whole country will be set on fire. He also asked the government not to involve army in the electoral process.
Apart from this, the senior leaders of the party are also holding series of meetings with the diplomats to inform them about the latest political situation of the country.
“It now seems clear that even the diplomatic community is now coming to a better comprehension of the fact that it is difficult to accept the 10th parliament election which has already been blackened by the election of majority (154) of the MPs in the parliament of 300 without any elections at all,” Moyeen observed.