The general election of January 7, 2024 will be a pointer to where the country is headed in terms of democracy and the growth of liberal politics. With nearly 30 political parties taking part in the vote, there can hardly be any reservations about the election not being participatory. The enthusiasm with which candidates, including those who have come into the election as independent aspirants, have been conducting their campaigns is once again a revival of the truth that elections matter to Bangladesh’s people.
And because they matter, it is important that on January 7 everything be in place for a process of voting that will give the country a parliament which can fulfil the needs of the people. The Election Commission, therefore, will be expected to exercise firm control over the voting on the day and nothing should be done to prevent it from exercising its authority. In these months, since the EC passed into the hands of its new personnel, it has actively engaged in trying to restore its place in the constitutional scheme of things. That purposefulness must not be marred between now and voting day.
There have been incidents of violence in these past weeks since the list of candidates was finalised by the Election Commission. Complaints have emerged of ruling party men preventing their rivals from campaigning, of candidates pouncing on media people. Such incidents have to be curbed, indeed put to a stop altogether if the election is to have fairness attached to it.
For the political parties, particularly the ruling party, it is crucial that candidates and their followers do nothing which will undermine the voting and so cause a blemish to be attached to the election. It will be the responsibility of the senior leadership of the ruling party to ensure that the candidates of other parties as well as independent candidates will campaign undisturbed.
The 2024 election will be decisive given that it is not merely the country’s citizens who will be observing the way it is conducted. There is too the outside world which has been taking keen interest in the election. Besides, there will be all the local and foreign election observers, apart from the media from both Bangladesh and abroad, who will be around to survey the nature and eventual outcome of the voting.
It will, therefore, be an immense responsibility for the Election Commission, with the support of the political parties, to convince people that on January 7 citizens will have exercised their right of franchise in the freedom accorded to them under the law. The writ of the EC must run on election day.
Which takes us to the way in which voting centres all over the country must pass under the control of the EC on January 7. Any attempt at intimidating voters into casting their ballots for candidates they are uncomfortable with must be handled firmly the very moment such intimidation becomes obvious. Every voter must be free to make his or her way to the polling booths and come away satisfied that he or she has made his or her personal choice through stamping that mark on the ballot paper.
The Election Commission, as well as the law enforcement, will need to be on standby to ensure that voters are not turned away from the polling stations through being told by political party followers that their ballots have already been cast. Those who indulge in such criminal acts must swiftly be taken into custody.
There should be a guarantee that no one other than the election agents of the parties will be in the polling booths. Everyone else, once they have voted, will leave the premises rather than move around in them. Again, in a country where political violence has become a disturbing feature especially at elections, the police, Ansar, RAB, village defense, and other such bodies must, authorized by the Election Commission, move swiftly into containing any skirmish or clashes which will or might break out between the followers of rival candidates at the polling stations.
If violence is not handled firmly, it could lead to conditions where voting at the centres which turn into battlefields for the followers of candidates to have a free run in will have to be suspended or cancelled altogether. That is not a pretty prospect.
Such circumstances will not arise if the political parties and the candidates look upon the election as an exercise aimed at deepening the roots of democracy in the country. There is another important responsibility the law enforcers will be called upon to undertake on January 7, which is to prevent, through peaceful but purposeful means, the parties and politicians campaigning against the election, from making their way to the polling stations.
More importantly, in the villages and towns and cities, given that anti-election activists could be out in force to stop people from making their way to the polling booths, it will be the job of the security forces to see to it that nothing is done to scare away voters as they proceed to the voting centres. Those who mean to disrupt the voting process must be handled gently but firmly, by the law enforcers.
Between now and election day, the political parties, the candidates, and their followers must engage themselves in the onerous task of having voters go to the polling stations. Elections gain in credibility and respectability when large numbers of voters opt to exercise their franchise. In these past many years, voter apathy has reached a point where citizens are disinclined to vote on the assumption that even without their votes candidates they might not go for will be elected anyway.
This trend needs to be reversed and the forthcoming election should be an opportunity for people’s faith in elections as a proper and healthy democratic exercise to be restored. The political parties, all of them, must contribute to this revival of voter interest through a sustained programme of visiting families and convincing them to cast their ballots on election day. Citizens must be informed that this election matters, that their votes will be instrumental in a consolidation of democracy in the country.
On January 7, Bangladesh needs to prove to itself that it has the ability to graduate to a liberal democratic society, that it can vote in a government and a parliament without interruption or interference or disruption from and by any quarter. For the Election Commission, the election will be an opportunity for it to demonstrate its independence and authority, of the kind that no one will undermine in the future.
The election on January 7 should be morally and politically convincing enough for the parties which have stayed away from it to be persuaded into believing that they will not and ought not to miss the electoral bus the next time.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Consultant Editor, Dhaka Tribune.