Upazila Elections
Is there a message for the Awami League?
LOOKING at the membership in the parliament and then judging by the partial results from the latest upazila elections one may think that they are from two completely different electorates. However, the truth is that one reflects the public opinion and the other a voter less election in which more than half of the MPs have come without getting a single vote. Is there a message for the AL in this?
The Awami League, and especially Sheikh Hasina, are making every dissenting view sound like treachery. Those who dare to say or write anything critical of this government, especially about the way the last election was conducted and how the present ruling party has come to power, are immediately attacked as enemies of democracy, as hidden supporters of BNP with hints that these voices are actually of those who do not have the best interest of the country at heart. From the PM's recent speeches and those of most ministers', save a rare few, it becomes clear that the mood of those in power today is to hear only praises and there will be no tolerance for any other views.
It is in this environment that the results of the first three phases of a five-phase upazila election have come before us. How will the AL leaders read these results? Will they brush them aside as acts of a stupid electorate unappreciative of all the good work that the party is doing? Or will they take a step back and try and understand what it is that the electorate is trying to say?
The rising violence at each successive phase of the election is a clear indication that the AL is becoming increasingly desperate to reverse the trends set in the first and second phases of the polls. If we examine the level of violence in the first phase in which elections were held in 98 upazilas, violence was confined to 65 polling centres in a dozen upazilas. In the second phase held in 115 upazilas, violence occurred in 100 polling stations spread over two dozen upazilas. In the third phase the intensity of the violence was the highest. The result was that for the first time AL got more chairman posts than the two previous times, bagging ten more compared to the BNP.
From the laudatory tone of some senior AL leaders' reaction to the rising violence in the polls the signal is clear -- violence is not an issue if it brings victory. If more violence brings greater victory for their candidates then so be it. In the meantime, the Election Commission keeps on saying that election was held in a peaceful manner.
The pattern that emerges from the poll results so far is indeed revealing. Out of a total of 291 chairman posts 120 went to BNP, 118 to AL, 27 to Jamaat, 2 to JP and 24 to others. For the post of vice chairman BNP got 221, AL 185, Jamaat 103, JP 12 and others 61. Clearly, the results totally negate the AL position that the opposition is without any public support. Perhaps more to the point is that even after indulging in the reckless, brutal and inhuman violence in the pre-January election period, Jamaat ended up doing much better than many had expected. In fact, for the posts of upazila vice chairman, Jamaat alone got 103 posts as compared to AL's 185, an unbelievable performance given their size and past record.
Evidently, the lesson for AL is that, regardless of their being in power, there is a serious lack of public support for them. It is true that the opposition BNP has, so far, miserably failed to make any use of it, but that does not obviate the fact that there exists serious public disenchantment about the ruling party as evidenced by the latest UP polls.
The Awami League, and especially Sheikh Hasina, are making every dissenting view sound like treachery. Those who dare to say or write anything critical of this government, especially about the way the last election was conducted and how the present ruling party has come to power, are immediately attacked as enemies of democracy, as hidden supporters of BNP with hints that these voices are actually of those who do not have the best interest of the country at heart. From the PM's recent speeches and those of most ministers', save a rare few, it becomes clear that the mood of those in power today is to hear only praises and there will be no tolerance for any other views.
It is in this environment that the results of the first three phases of a five-phase upazila election have come before us. How will the AL leaders read these results? Will they brush them aside as acts of a stupid electorate unappreciative of all the good work that the party is doing? Or will they take a step back and try and understand what it is that the electorate is trying to say?
The rising violence at each successive phase of the election is a clear indication that the AL is becoming increasingly desperate to reverse the trends set in the first and second phases of the polls. If we examine the level of violence in the first phase in which elections were held in 98 upazilas, violence was confined to 65 polling centres in a dozen upazilas. In the second phase held in 115 upazilas, violence occurred in 100 polling stations spread over two dozen upazilas. In the third phase the intensity of the violence was the highest. The result was that for the first time AL got more chairman posts than the two previous times, bagging ten more compared to the BNP.
From the laudatory tone of some senior AL leaders' reaction to the rising violence in the polls the signal is clear -- violence is not an issue if it brings victory. If more violence brings greater victory for their candidates then so be it. In the meantime, the Election Commission keeps on saying that election was held in a peaceful manner.
The pattern that emerges from the poll results so far is indeed revealing. Out of a total of 291 chairman posts 120 went to BNP, 118 to AL, 27 to Jamaat, 2 to JP and 24 to others. For the post of vice chairman BNP got 221, AL 185, Jamaat 103, JP 12 and others 61. Clearly, the results totally negate the AL position that the opposition is without any public support. Perhaps more to the point is that even after indulging in the reckless, brutal and inhuman violence in the pre-January election period, Jamaat ended up doing much better than many had expected. In fact, for the posts of upazila vice chairman, Jamaat alone got 103 posts as compared to AL's 185, an unbelievable performance given their size and past record.
Evidently, the lesson for AL is that, regardless of their being in power, there is a serious lack of public support for them. It is true that the opposition BNP has, so far, miserably failed to make any use of it, but that does not obviate the fact that there exists serious public disenchantment about the ruling party as evidenced by the latest UP polls.
On the face of it, AL leaders are putting up a bold front saying that upazila elections have their own dynamics which have very little to do with national polls and hence the apparent performance of BNP and Jamaat does not have any bearing on AL support base. This argument is seriously flawed as in all previous local government elections that followed on the heels of national polls, the party that won at the national level also won the local elections. The shift only occurred when there was a significant time gap between the two, which is not the case here.
AL's mood is one of denial and that of the PM defiant. The party is in no mood to reflect on the fact that the so-called election that they loudly claim to have won has given them a largely 'empty' victory. AL leaders seem quite happy to enjoy the power and its perks for the moment and any thought of a proper election is furthest from their mind. One veteran AL leader and presently a minister told this writer candidly: “Tell me, in which country of the world will a ruling party voluntarily surrender power to the opposition? BNP made a fatal mistake by boycotting the election and they will have to wait for the next election to come to power, if they can. We are not going to voluntarily take any step that may reduce our constitutionally mandated term.”
One interesting aspect of the present condition is that for the first time we will have “two types” of elected leaders, where the local MP, at least in 153 cases, will have come to office uncontested -- without facing the voters -- while in those same places we will have upazila chairmen and vice chairmen who will hold office with the direct support of the voters. How this power game will play out will be something interesting to watch.
So the question is, how will the government deal with the people elected at the upazila level? Will they ignore and disempower them, as was the case with the elected local government leaders during the last caretaker government? Or will they be given a chance to exert the authority of the respective offices to which they have been elected? We see very little chance of the latter option coming into effect. It is most unlikely that the government will give any space to the just elected UP leaders to do their job, not only because, as in many cases, they belong to the opposition, but also because of the qualitative difference in the representative character of the local MP and their UP counterpart.
The government, in this case, will undoubtedly lean towards supporting the MPs, resulting in the much awaited and much needed devolution of power to the local level being put off once again, and the practice of everything being done from Dhaka continuing.
Whatever lessons there are for the AL to learn from the upazila elections will continue to be ignored and, in its place, everything will be done to reverse the trend of the results to favour the ruling party, by whatever means necessary.
We ardently hope we are proven wrong.
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