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IN AN address to the nation on Sunday, aired live on television and radio, the chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, outlined the schedules for elections to the ninth Jatiya Sangsad, and also the upazila councils. The announcement of the polls schedules, which only a few days back appeared uncertain as a petition challenging the legality of the fresh demarcation of electoral constituency remained pending with the High Court (the petition was dismissed on Sunday), is indeed a step forward. It is assuring that the commission has been able to unveil the national and upazila elections schedules; however, there is hardly any reason for anyone to rest assured as mere announcement of elections schedules hardly guarantees all-contested and acceptable elections. In fact, now is the time for both the commission and the government to step up cooperation with the political parties so that they can nominate their candidates, conduct campaigns and participate in the elections without any hindrance – perceived or real.
   Needless to say, neither the military-controlled interim government nor the commission has had an auspicious start on this count. The commission was perceived to be a willing partner in the government’s pursuit of what infamously came to be known as the ‘minus-two’ agenda. The commission’s credibility hit the lowest point last year when it invited a small, government-endorsed splinter faction of the BNP for official talks on the basis of a dubious meeting of some of its standing committee members. Although the minus-two project has since been put on hold and Shamsul Huda apologised, in the wake of Khaleda Zia’s release from prison, saying ‘what happened with regard to the BNP’ in the past ‘was unwarranted’, there still remains widespread suspicion that the incumbents might tinker with the electoral process to favour one party over the other. To dispel such misgivings, the government and the commission need to appear neutral, in both their words and deeds, if they really wish for the elections to be participatory and credible. They need also to realise that, if any of the two political camps were to shun the elections because of their perceived antagonism, not only would the entire process be deemed unacceptable but it may also lead to another period of sustained political uncertainty and even social unrest.
   That said, we would also like to restate what we have all along been saying, i.e. a complete withdrawal of the prevailing state of emergency is a prime prerequisite for free and fair elections. The withdrawal of emergency, as we have said before, cannot and must not be viewed against the interest of one political party or the other. Moreover, elections are more about the people than the political parties. The electorate need to engage with the candidates in a free environment so that they are equipped with an informed opinion when they cast their votes. The state of emergency and the climate of fear that it has induced preclude such free engagements between the political parties and the people. Hence, while we welcome the announcement of the elections schedules, we would very much like to see it followed up by immediate withdrawal of the state of emergency.

Myanmar’s warship message
imperils ongoing talks

THE incursion of Burmese naval warships, escorting oil and gas exploration vessels, into Bangladesh waters in the Bay of Bengal is an alarming development that requires immediate state-level talks and necessary action. As per reports, on November 1, the Bangladesh navy asked four ships contracted by the Burmese government to explore for oil and gas to retreat back into their own territory. Though the ships obliged, they reportedly returned the same day, now escorted by two Burmese naval warships, indicating a threatening posture of the Burmese government on this issue. The Burmese incursion rightly prompted an official protest by the government of Bangladesh. Such a menacing and provocative gesture on Myanmar’s part is potentially harmful for regional peace and stability, which even Myanmar’s military strongmen must admit is in their interest to preserve.
   Also, this act is inconsistent with the series of friendly gestures that Bangladesh has shown towards Myanmar in recent years. On the issue of maritime boundary, for example, Bangladesh has been ready to talk to Myanmar and settle the disputes through discussion, even though the Bangladesh government believes, rightly in our view, that the disputed area falls inside Bangladeshi territory as per international law. Ongoing talks to resolve this matter are set to resume later this month. Against that backdrop, the aggressive posture taken by Myanmar is very unfortunate. We must also say that there has been a considerable diplomatic failure on the part of the government of Bangladesh that it failed to gauge and warn of the possibility of such a threat emerging.
   However, we hope that the two governments will settle this dispute amicably through negotiations, and the Burmese authorities will think the better of sending aggressive signals that may imperil the option of further talks. While the Bay of Bengal is suddenly in the focus of attention because of the possibility of vast amounts of mineral resources including oil and gas in its waters, Bangladesh, India and Myanmar must all respect UN guidelines and bilateral talks and treaties, as well as compromises reached at the negotiating table, to settle their territorial claims on these resources. In case of a deviation, peace and stability in the region will be put at stake, which is not desirable for any side.

IT’S election day in America today. After an election season that has lasted almost two years, the people will finally have their say. With every indicator pointing towards an easy victory for Democrat Barack Obama and pundits now debating how large Obama’s electoral college margin will be, John McCain and the Republicans are clutching at straws and hoping for a November surprise. It will not come.
   Republicans, naturally, have been trying to talk up every possible way that McCain could make a last-minute comeback. Even Democrats, cautiously optimistic though they are, have been preparing themselves for the worst case scenario: a last-minute, come-from-behind victory for John McCain that will be the ultimate shocker in American presidential politics. It’s not that candidates have not made late comebacks in US presidential races before. Reagan came from behind in the last week of campaigning to beat Carter in 1980, and Truman pulled off an even more shocking upset in defeating Thomas Dewey in 1948. Even still, it is hard to imagine how McCain could possibly win this. The math just does not add up for him.
   As things stand, Obama looks set to win every state carried by John Kerry in 2004, giving him 252 electoral college votes, 18 short of the 270 needed for victory. He also looks set to carry Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico, states that Bush won in 2004, for an additional 21 votes, taking his total to 273, past the magic figure. In those three Bush states, Obama has consistently led in all major opinion polls by large margins. The latest average of major polls, compiled by the Chicago-based political website realclearpolitics.com, gives him a 5.5 percentage point lead in Colorado, a 7.3 percentage point lead in New Mexico and a 15.3 percentage point lead in Iowa. Hence, Obama can go on to lose every other major battleground state — Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri and Nevada — and still win the election. Unfortunately for McCain, Obama is leading significantly in most of those states as well.
   McCain, therefore, cannot win this election by trying to hold on to the Bush states. Iowa, Colorado and New Mexico will almost certainly go to Obama and several others, including Nevada, Virginia and Florida, will probably follow suit. His only chance is to win all the large battleground states mentioned above and flip one major Kerry state, Pennsylvania. Obama had been leading by double-digit margins in Pennsylvania as recently as last week but the polls have tightened somewhat. McCain’s hope is that he can woo enough culturally-conservative Democrats, the blue-collar workers in the western part of the state who overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, to switch to McCain. He may be getting some traction there as well as he pounds his newfound message: Obama is a socialist, wealth spreader. Still, McCain has a mountain to climb in Pennsylvania as Obama heads into the election maintaining a 7 percentage point lead in the latest average of major polls. Also, while pulling off an upset win in Pennsylvania will give McCain a lifeline, it still probably won’t be enough as Obama looks likely to pick up states like Virginia, Ohio and Florida, all large states in which he leads by about 5 percentage points going into the election. He is even closing the gap on McCain in Arizona, the Republican candidate’s home state. McCain will end up winning Arizona, but the fact that the state is now being considered a potential battleground is embarrassing enough for the McCain campaign.
   Since the math does not work out at all for McCain, the question to ask is: can these polls be wrong? They can, and they have in the past. Political polling is a complex process with many variables. Pollsters have to work out, given past trends and voting patterns, what the actual make-up of the electorate will be in terms of age, race, gender, religion, economic status, etc and ensure that their polling samples are as representative of that make-up as possible. The difficulty in figuring out which groups will end up voting in high numbers and which group will stay at home on election day means that polls can get it horribly wrong and often do. However, an average of polls taken over a period of time usually provides a pretty accurate picture of which way an election is going. Also, trends matter more than single-day snapshots, and the trends this year, particularly after the economic meltdown in America, favour Obama.
   There are, however, a couple of additional aspects to this year’s presidential race that makes polling even more difficult. First, a lot has been said about the so-called Bradley effect. In 1982, Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, an African-American Democrat, was leading in every poll coming into the California gubernatorial election and surprisingly ended up losing to white Republican George Deukmejian on election day. Pundits concluded that people must have told pollsters that they would vote for Bradley, when they actually intended to vote for Deukmejian, to hide their racial prejudices, and this became known as the ‘Bradley effect’. However, there are problems with that hypothesis. Late polls in California showed the race tightening significantly, and a far more plausible reason for Bradley’s defeat is that the undecided voters tilted heavily for Deukmejian on election day. Also, even if racial prejudices were a factor in 1982, it should be remembered that the majority of the electorate at that time had attended segregated schools in the pre-Civil Rights Act era. That is no longer the case. Racial tensions remain in the United States, as do racists; but they usually don’t vote Democratic anyway and will almost certainly not change the outcome of this presidential race.
   Second, even if Obama loses Democratic votes on account of his race, and he certainly will, he is likely to make up for them in increased turnout among African-Americans. Although African-Americans make up almost 13 per cent of the American population, they usually constitute a far lower portion of the US electorate. That is about to change. The first credible African-American candidate has energised the black community, and even in states that are going to be won by McCain, such as Georgia, African-Americans have come out in droves during the early voting period. That is an indication of what is to come on election day.
   And third, the Obama campaign has energised another group which usually does not participate in the electoral process: the youth. Typical voter turnout among 18-25 year olds is extremely low in America, which means that pollsters usually include a very small percentage of people in this age group in their samples. But their numbers are sure to increase this time around. Obama’s campaign has been fuelled by the youth, and hundreds of thousands of young voters have given money to the campaign and volunteered their time to get Obama elected. If the Obama campaign, with its apparently massive voter turnout operation, can get the youth to vote on election day, his margins will be significantly improved.
   There is little reason to believe, therefore, that even if the polls are incorrect, McCain will be the beneficiary on election day. Even if the vast majority of undecided voters end up choosing McCain on election day, Obama is also likely to get a boost by higher African-American and youth turnout that is not accounted for in the polling.
   Hence, in every way one looks at it, prospects are extremely bleak for John McCain. For him to win, every major pollster in America would have had to get their numbers completely wrong. That is not likely at all. Also, the wind is at the Democrats’ back this year and Obama has undoubtedly been helped by the economic slowdown that has discredited conservative economic policies and diminished the Republican brand. This is the Democrats’ year. Obama will win the White House. The Democratic Party will increase their majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives. John McCain’s November surprise might be just how badly he loses this election.