ANALYSIS
Are we asking the right questions?
Thailand’s Thaksin won a permanent vote base by courting the most underprivileged voters for the first time in Thai history. Without the middlemen, he directly reached out to them and made policies that favoured them. In today’s Bangladesh, this group is still not courted by any of the parties,
writes Asif Saleh
The last two years have been some of the most dramatic in Bangladesh’s short history. Fundamental tinkering of our fragile democracy has caused some lasting damage. However, if you look at the TV talking heads on the talk shows, you would think this election is no different than any previous one. There is incessant talk of election excitement and VIP candidate fights. It’s now fashionable to talk about ‘joggo’ candidates without defining what makes a candidate ‘joggo’. Fancy vote cars are running around in Bangladesh interviewing voters who never reveal their voting preference. Once the election is over, surely, the media and the public will get busy with who would be in the cabinet and who would be chopped. There will be talk about alliances, vote margins, star defeats and sms messages and letters. But the real issues that came out in the open in the past two years and need to be debated will again remain unresolved only to haunt us in the future.
Newspaper editors who just months ago were inviting General Moeen to declare himself the president of the country are now glorifying democracy under the two main parties that takes us to the path of ‘emancipation’. I stare at the television in disbelief as I see the editor, who shamelessly planted news items supplied by intelligence to discredit the politicians in his newspaper, questioning why industrialist Azam Chowdhury filed a case against Sheikh Hasina in the first place. Scarier than these people are the journalists who let these statements go unchallenged. Is this a case of collective amnesia or an art of repositioning in front of a silent majority?
How else would you explain Gen Moeen’s parting ‘interview’ where he boldly declared how great the military was for not declaring martial law in the country in spite of diplomats asking him to take over. In this one single interview, he admits what we knew all along – this was a diplomat driven, military controlled government. In one single breath he took credit for good governance while refusing to admit that military was running the show. Indeed, he rightly once said that Bangladeshis are kind at heart with a great penchant for forgiving and forgetting. They will forgive and forget him as well in no time for setting such a bad precedent that will pave the way for future interventions. They will forget how his mishandling has set back our political reforms process by years. Just like they have forgiven his predecessor General Ershad, the born again anti-corruption crusader. Or have they? Are the media asking the right questions or reminding the people what he had done in the past?
Of course, no one in these elections is talking about this elephant in the room. How would future generals with ambitions be dealt with? In all likelihood, this issue will never get talked about by the media or by the political parties only for this issue to resurface and haunt us again and again in the coming years. Similarly, we won’t talk about our identity, the role of religion in our society, the role of the media, the status of minorities in Bangladesh or even the kind of Bangladesh we want to see in ten years’ time. When you talk about a vision, that vision is engulfed with multinational jobs and talk of a ‘digital Bangladesh’. But missing from the vision is the pluralistic society we want to see in Bangladesh, how much bigotry we are willing to tolerate, how we are contemplating tackling the greatest crisis of global warming that is displacing millions of people in the coming years, or the future of the crumbling and partisan media. Missing from the discussion is the ever increasing socio-economic gap. What we are discussing, however, is the trial of war criminals: the safe, annual issue that gives good mileage, ones that don’t ever need to be followed up with action.
There is a lot of talk about the first time voters, however. How would they vote? The first time voters I know are very excited about a ‘no’ vote. But this can be a disaster if used without proper organisation? A no vote is a negative vote that needs to be organised by equal resources and mobilisation like that of candidates. Eight years ago in the US presidential elections, a lot of left-leaning voters said that it didn’t matter whether Gore or Bush got elected because they both stood for the same ideals. They voted for Ralph Nader instead which cost Gore the elections. Eight years later, we know that electing Gore would have made a difference, and a big one as well. The reality is that Bangladesh will see some very close elections this year and results in a few may decide which party goes to power. In that context, a ‘no’ vote is a waste unless more than 50 per cent vote ‘no’ forcing a re-election. Based on that can we afford an experiment with it in such an important election? If the candidates of the two major parties are bad, then I suggest we vote for an alternate candidate on the list. Ask yourself about your vision for Bangladesh and which party, judging by past records, would be able to implement that vision to the closest. Use the ‘no’ vote as your absolute last option. Please.
There are many among first-time voters who are unaware of the ‘no’ vote option. What is their thinking? Which way they go will decide the election swing. In all likelihood, their vote is going to be very much localised. They will not vote on issues but on gut instincts. They will vote based on their own security and risk analysis. Thailand’s Thaksin won a permanent vote base by courting the most underprivileged voters for the first time in Thai history. Without the middlemen, he directly reached out to them and made policies that favoured them. In today’s Bangladesh, this group is still not courted by any of the parties.
Only seven days left before the elections and there is not a single opinion poll available in Bangladesh yet. A leading news paper that did a poll with a lot of fanfare, did not ask the all important question ‘Which party will you vote for?’ This is perhaps also the biggest irony of this election. We have forgotten to ask the most important and obvious questions to the political parties.
Asif Saleh is the executive director of the rights organisation Drishtipat. He can be reached at asif.saleh@drishtipat.org
BALLOTSBLOG
To err is superhuman?
by Shameran Abed
A couple of days ago, the chief election commissioner was seen telling a scrum of reporters that the election commissioners are ‘super-humans’ and have ‘supernatural powers’. He was trying to look serious while saying it as well. Of course, he was not actually serious and thankfully so. He was being sarcastic. It was a slightly scary sight as well.
To go back a little, it all started with the High Court ordering the Election Commission to reinstate the candidatures of several candidates who had been barred, for various reasons, by the commission from running in the upcoming parliamentary polls. Having heard their appeals and dismissed those as well, the commission had then set about printing ballot papers. In the meantime, these candidates appealed the commission’s decision once again, this time to the High Court. The courts, having heard their appeals, decided that they ought to be reinstated and ordered the commission to do just that. Now, the commissioners are evidently upset that the High Court is sending them candidates to reinstate everyday and causing havoc to their ballot paper printing process.
While the chief election commissioner’s apparent frustration is understandable, his sarcasm is mistimed and misplaced. First of all, if the High Court cannot find any reason for cancellation of a person’s candidature, it has no choice but to order his or her reinstatement. Second, these processes would not have to be completed in such a frenzy, within two weeks, if the EC had paid more attention to the electoral process than political engineering over the past 23 months. If anyone is at fault here, is it not the commission for wrongly cancelling the candidatures of those they are now having to reinstate?
Therefore, if the commissioner wants to show his frustration, he should show it to himself and his colleagues for their mess-up. He should not be doing it on live television, and nor should he insinuate that the High Court is somehow at fault for any of this.
VOXPOP
Khamin asks residents of the troubled and neglected Chittagong Hill Tracts if they are enthusiastic about the coming elections and what their ideal candidate will do for them...
Birpaksha Tripura, Golabari, Khagrachhari Sadar
All I can say is that I don’t have any favourite candidates. I will probably decide just before voting. None of the candidates feel the pulse of the ethnic communities of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Chiko Chakma, Rangamati Sadar
We have been casting votes since ’73. But what have we got so far? What have we achieved in the last few decades? I think Moni Swapan Dewan worked for us but he could not secure a nomination.
Meron Mro, Roangchhari, Bandarban
I will vote for a more progressive candidate. Sachin Pru is my favourite but he is contesting with the 4-party alliance nomination. But I will not vote for him. BNP does not want peace with the Paharis.
Mamaci Mong, Rajasthali, Rangamati
We are poor. We have no money. I will vote for someone who will give me money. I do not know any candidate. In the last election, I got Tk 500 from a candidate and I voted for him.
Qio Jal Cla, Thanchi, Bandarban
I used to wait for the leaders in their house for hours to discuss our problems, I could not see their face. Now, as election is knocking on the door they have come knocking on our doors.
Shafiul Alam, Chandraghona, Rangamati
I will certainly vote for a progressive party. They have been working to improve our lives and livelihood. They are still working for us. They have given us shelter in this area.
Shiaung Khumi, Roangchhari, Bandarban
I will vote for nobody because I do not like any of the candidates. They sell our timber and bamboo and earn huge chunks of money. But we are getting from poor to poorer.
Thiam Niang Bawm, Ruma, Bandarban
I cannot recognise the candidates anymore. I have become old I do not know what they are promising. I will learn from my sons. In fact, I will vote according to their suggestions.
READERSPEAK
AL manifesto
Your report on AL manifesto (December 12), appears reasonably pragmatic.
However, implementing it during their term of office, should they win, seems difficult. And if they are replaced by their arch-enemy BNP, come next election, then even the realistic goal of 5000MW power by 2011 will also disappear.
The real-life example for it is there; even AL’s MoU for power plant was summarily cancelled in a very foolish manner as soon as they were succeeded by the BNP. After that the BNP could not even add 1MW of power when they were in office.
Regarding other pledges like the ACC, free education at the degree level, permanent wage and pay commission, trial of war criminals and one job per family –– all these could also be scrapped once power changes hand.
Possibly jobs for youth and free education up to graduate level, being touchy issues, may be continued by the BNP.
A citizen
Dhaka
Broader perspective
There is a festive mood everywhere surrounding the polls 2008 but there is a strain of frustration mingled with it.
Many voters, especially the new generation first-time voters, are expressing their dissatisfaction over the nomination of not so honest candidates. It is a matter of concern.
But yet there are reasons to be optimistic. What is important is the building up of a culture of democracy and democratic polls. One day, things will change. Just stay optimistic.
MH Khan
Dhaka
Worried
Talking to people, it seems that they are dreading the return of the two begums.
Iftekhar Sayeed
Dhaka
Ershad and election
Ershad is making sensational as well as irritating comments everyday giving a glimpse of what is in store for us if he’s elected to power.
I really don’t get how the Awami League could allow Ershad to tag along with them. They even persuaded and pampered this comic ex-president of ours to stay with the grand alliance.
This is our politics and these are our policymakers.
Sonia Sharmin
Dhaka
* * *
Ershad vowed to honour army’s 1/11 role. What role may I ask? The way the army suffocated the entire nation and the people in the last two years?
The way they shattered the economy? The way they failed to control prices of essentials? We really would like Ershad to elaborate on this point.
A citizen
Dhaka
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Next on Readerspeak
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a. Fresh candidate inclusion puts major alliances in trouble (New Age, December 21)
b. ACC doubts AL, BNP’s anti-graft pledges (New Age, December 21)
c. BNP for no hartal, anarchy, says Khaleda (New Age, December 21)
d. Over 50,000 troops deployed on polls duty (New Age, December 21)
e. EU finds credible polls still challenging for EC (New Age, December 21)
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Red flag in Athens and shoe in Baghdad
by Nehal Adil
ATINA, today’s Athens, was the cradle of western civilisation. From the days of Homer, it has caught the imagination of not only the west but of the east too. Babylon can be, in approximately the same way, associated with Baghdad.
The global economic crisis has hit many countries. From Colombia to Thailand and Greece – countries in wider triangle have gone out of control. The earthquake is shaking the earth and is now possibly most visible in Athens, the home of the birth of civilisation. For two weeks, Athens and Greece as a whole has been paralysed by the general strike in protest against high prices and the shooting of a young man who was an innocent bystander.
Greece’s ‘conservative’ government which was a strong supporter of the outgoing US president George Bush has only a one-seat majority. The opposition wants fresh elections. Greece suffered devastating fire last summer. People have lost faith in the government.
As such, the present protest is not being run by any official opposition party. By a spontaneous mass movement, people are showing they are the masters of destiny. In fact, since the fall of the military dictatorship, Greece is being ruled by two families Papandereu and Karmanalis. Papandreau represents the Pan Hellenic Socialist Movement or Pasok and is said to be of the left while the Karanalis Civic Union is said to be of the right. But actually there is little difference between the two. They just alternate power through elections. People call it a bipartisan monarchy.
Now the revolt is not only against the ruling party but against the entire system of bipartisan monarchy. Their symbol is a red flag with a revolver in it. On December 18, in a massive demonstration at the heart of Athens they made a call for an all-European uprising. The International Herald Tribune, which is generally very well informed, observed that it could very much happen in France and Germany.
Are we going forty years back to 1968 to an all-European uprising? Situation today is even worse. At that time there was not so serious an economic crisis that George Bush had created. True, there was a war in Vietnam but European troops were not participating. NATO was militarily much stronger than it is today, with half a million American soldiers stationed in Europe. The Soviet Union and its allies did not want to be trigger-happy and thus endanger their own security. The official pro-Moscow communist parties denounced it as infantile adventuresome. They went to the length of calling Rudi Deuschke and Daniel Cohen Bendit as CIA agents.
The Soviet Union does not exist any more, so do not pro-Soviet Communist parties. By their missed opportunities of the 1968 uprising, they were thrown into the dustbin of history. But forty years later new revolutionary opportunities has been created by George Bush whose father George Bush senior destroyed the Soviet Union without firing a single shot. In fact, by destroying the Soviet Union Bush senior created the situation for unification of the European working class and an all-European uprising.
Tariq Ali, a great son of the Indian subcontinent who participated in the great 1968 uprising and visited Dhaka too as a great friend of our self-determination movement, has written a book called ‘Bush in Babylon’. I did not have its original one in English but read its Swedish translation. He made a through analysis of Bush’s barbarity in attacking an ancient civilisation.
Bush’s blunder has destroyed the American economy, not only that it has hurt the emerging capitalist economies in the third world. Entire bourgeoisie of the world are in crisis and the myth of the death of communism has turned into a hydra which a man like Sarkozy has called the death of capitalism a la American. Even Angela Merkel and Manmohan Singh, great friends of Bush, have not missed the point.
American people have defeated Bush’s party.
But Bush would not abandon his triumphal mood. With that he went to Baghdad and addressed a press conference. There an Arab journalist threw his shoes to him for the orphans and widows created by Bush’s aggression. He killed two million Iraqis and Afghans and he is not sorry for it.
In Athens, the Greeks in barricade demanded to Barack Obama the surrender of Bush, Rumsfeld, Robert Gates and Mullen to the war crime tribunal in Hague.
I do not think Obama will do it since he has retained the alleged war criminals Gates and Mullen under pressure of the military industrial complex. Even Kennedy could not defy them and had to pay with his life.
But the red flag in Athens and shoes in Baghdad give new direction in the world arena.
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