MOHAMMAD HOSSAIN analyses the resurgence of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and other opposition parties in the recently held upazila elections even amidst alleged rigging and poll violence.
Elections in Bangladesh have of late become something synonymous to an Orwellian drama, staged to the applause of government institutions such as the Election Commission and the ruling party’s very own troupe of domesticated media, human rights organisations and advocacy groups.
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The 10th general elections held on January 5 this year was no exception, as the government orchestrated a violence-ridden saga where the Election Commission arranged for voting in 147 constituencies out of a total of 300. The rest of the 153 constituencies were uncontested due to the absence of any opposition candidate since the opposition, led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its main ally, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami had boycotted the elections on grounds that elections could neither be fair nor free under a partisan government such as the erstwhile government led by the Awami League, especially one that was widely associated with an extremely shocking record in violations of human rights, rampant corruption and a rule upazila election of law which was heavily based on the silencing of opposition activists and any dissenting voices in the media.
Less than two months after the national elections, the BNP-led alliance contested the fourth nationwide upazila (sub-district) elections where BNP-Jamaat backed chairman candidates showed a strong performance. The upazila election results show, among other things, a resurgence of the popularity of the major Islamist party, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, challenging the status quo of the widely circulated perception that the Jamaat is universally hated by the citizens of Bangladesh and no one can possibly support it.
So far (by March 22) elections in 295 upazila parishads (sub-district councils) have been held in three out of a total of five phases. Among the 224 candidates backed by BNP for the office of upazila chairman, 123 have won. Among the 295 fielded by Awami League for the office, 117 have been elected. Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami put forward 78 upazila chairman candidates of whom 29 have won. The Jatiya Party, which was the main alliance of the ruling party in joining the controversial national election, has won in only one upazila till date. The scenario for the vice chairman posts projects a similar picture, where BNP bagged 221, Awami League 118 and Jamaat 103 out of the 582 vice-chairman posts contested by the major parties.
The resurgence of the Jamaat, be it as a consequence of the will of the people, is not being viewed kindly by the administration. In a programme held in the capital on February 20, prominent Leftist politician and incumbent minister for information Hasanul Haque Inu, while speaking to media, expressed his disappointment and lack of understanding of the fact that people had voted for the Jamaat-e-Islami in such large numbers. On the other hand, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of the incumbent Prime Minister, at a party programme in Rangpur on March 17, expressed bewilderment while saying that the victory of Jamaat in such large numbers was a matter of shame, since he thought that the party had been judicially banned from participation in any polls.
Despite the reiteration of such fascist comments on many levels in the current administration, prominent civil rights and advocacy groups have pointed out otherwise, alluding to widespread elections irregularities on part of the government. Dr. Badiul Alam Majumdar, Secretary of SUJON (Sushashoner Jonno Nagorik/Citizens for Good Governance), while expressing his opinion on the polls, told the weekly magazine the PROBE, “Other than in the first phase, there has been extreme violence and chaos in the upazila elections. The environment was not conducive to credible elections. The Election Commission has been a failure in this connection. If the election had been free and fair, the results would have been different.”
Close observation of the polls reveals that the successes of the BNP-Jamaat candidates were indirectly proportional to the level of violence and election irregularities perpetrated by the state. Interestingly the candidates belonging to the Awami League won almost all the seats where there was evidence of vote rigging and violence. Where the first phase was peaceful, BNP-Jamaat bagged the maximum seats, a whopping 58 seats to AL’s 34 seats. This deficit was overturned at the 3rd phase where AL bagged 37 seats to BNP-Jamaat’s 34 seats. It is mentionable that the third phase of the upazila election was marred with widespread irregularities, forcible takeover of voting centres, false votes and violence. Two died during the election violence and another was shot dead by the police.
Moreover, the Election Working Group, a platform of 29 civil society organisations, remarked the third phase of the upazila polls was not “free and fair”. Their observation reveals some 258 incidents of violence in 54 upazilas and at least 77 polling agents being driven away from voting centres in 22 upazilas. Ninety of their observers were barred from observing the vote count. Translate the above to the 4th and 5th phases and the foreseeable situation is indeed worrying.
Analysts have put down the strong performance of the Jamaat, which many had claimed before the polls to be highly unpopular, more to its root level organisational prowess and popularity than to the disorganization and disunity within arch-rival Awami League. This was evident from wins by a huge margin of votes where Jamaat have defeated their AL rivals and small margins of loss to where they have lost to the AL.
The upazila elections have also shattered myths of Jamaat being misogynist and against women’s suffrage, as Jamaat backed female vice chairmen won in 10 posts in the latest phase of the upazila polls alone. Warhana Ahmed Mala, an elected Jamaat female vice Chairman of Adamdighi upazila, while recounting her experience to being elected to the post for the second time said, “People think Jamaat is misogynist and backward looking. It is not true. There is an area in my upazila where about 37 Hindu castes live. I was elected by a huge vote margin there too. I am grateful to my voters.”
These developments come at a time when Awami League supporters both on the ground and in the media have been demanding the total banning of Jamaat as political party in light a controversial decision by Bangladesh’s High Court on 1 August, 2013 which cancelled Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami’s political registration on grounds that the party’s charter, by acknowledging the absolute power of God, breached Bangladesh’s 1972 secular constitution, which upholds the sovereignty and absolute power of the people of Bangladesh.
The issue of the banning of the Jamaat was brought again to the fore when Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Huq on March 14 said the government would take initiatives to ban Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami by June this year. The performance by Jamaat in the upazila polls however, compounds the need to revisit this stance and question the motives of a state that purports to right perceived historical wrongs through widespread clampdown on what is effectively the actual bastion of opposition in the country. The question now remains as to how can we profess to support democracy and still want to ban a party that can pull such level of public support?