On the morning of April 28 -- the day of the three city corporation elections -- I went around some parts of Dhaka North. It was a festive atmosphere, but also calm with only posters reminding me that an election is underway in Bangladesh.
I sat at a tea stall and wondered if I had ever seen or covered an election so peaceful in a politically-charged country like Bangladesh.
I came home and told some of my friends it was like the US polls I saw in New York in 1984. There were posters only where voting took place.
As I followed the polls on TV, there were reports of scattered incidents of vote rigging and small-scale violence that also did not require the Border Guard Bangladesh to intervene. The police handled it well.
I told myself that the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party candidates in the race should be happy with the way the voting was taking place. You have to give a 20% grace and if 80% is fair, then that is a great improvement in terms of our local government elections.
One cannot expect a 100%, which does not even happen in the US or in India. And I would say we have done well, and next time we should do better.
Sometime after 12 noon, suddenly TV channels started airing news of BNP pulling out of Chittagong mayoral polls, while the other two candidates in Dhaka followed suit. Dhaka Noth mayoral candidate Tabith Awal had said at 9am that he would win the way voting was taking place.
Judging from their faces, both BNP candidates were not very willing to withdraw from the race; but had to due to tactical plans hatched by the higher-ups in BNP, and Khaleda Zia.
The telephone conversation of two BNP leaders going around the internet makes it clear that they had planned long before to use the polls as an opportunity to escape public wrath caused by the indefinite blockade and strikes. Although they never called off the blockades, it eventually waned. The BNP and its 20-party alliance is now surviving on media coverage. If the media starts ignoring them, the alliance will fade away too.
Chittagong BNP candidate Manjur was seen casting his vote without any major leaders around him, and many think that his party mates accused him of backstabbing, and this made him quit politics altogether.
The BNP’s tactical policy was to use the polls in its favour before and after April 28. Before the polls, they tried to create unrest in the country by using the blockades and strikes, and now, by withdrawing from the polls, they are trying to tell the world that fair elections are not possible under this government and thus its caretaker issue was correct.
The alliance did not react until midday April 29, and it seems they are wondering what to do as the tactical move has not brought about desired results. The voting was competitive, although turnout fell once they withdrew.
People in the urban areas in Bangladesh are not so eager to go out and vote, and given that it was a very hot day, the turnout was not as high as expected.
With the final results and the close fight that took place, it will be difficult for the BNP to sell its plan and go for fresh anti-government action.
It has to learn a lot more from the ruling AL before hatching another such plan to unseat the government.