House of Lords to debate Bangladesh’s election
This press release was received this weekend:
Following from a conference held on the November 14, 2006 by Policy Exchange, ‘The Rise of Political Islam in Bangladesh: What’s At Stake in the 2007 Elections?’, jointly chaired by Lord Avebury and Dean Godson of the Policy Exchange, the House of Lords will hold a 2 ½ hour debate next Thursday 30 November on a motion calling attention to the role of the international community in the forthcoming elections in Bangladesh.
Lord Avebury said today:
‘Following the resignation of the former Chief Election Commissioner, the controversial M A Aziz, it was hoped that his successor would be a person acceptable to all parties. It was surprising that Justice Mahfuz ur Rahman, who is also not seen as neutral, has appointed himself without consultation. It is the President who should make this appointment, after hearing from his advisers, and unfortunately the irregular proceedings by the Electoral Commission will prolong the uncertainty about the conduct of the election’.
‘Justice Mahfuz had already said he will take no action over the 14 million spurious names in the electoral register, to say nothing of the millions of people whose names have been omitted. With this man in charge, it is doubtful whether free and fair elections can be held, and we will discuss what action the international community might take to persuade the President and Head of the Caretaker government willingness to listen to peoples demand for a level playing field’.
‘British Bangladeshis are not alone in their anxiety that the January elections should be properly conducted. The number of observers who will be converging on Bangladesh from the EU, the Commonwealth and neighbouring states is an indication of the international community’s concern that free and fair elections are in the balance’
November 28th, 2006 at 5:27 am
It’s about time the rest of the world vocally raise questions about the vote-rigging process. Perhaps then the stubborn and arguably, partisan, Iajuddin will back down and concede a simple and validrequest to make sure the voting lists are accurate.
November 28th, 2006 at 7:03 am
Joynal,
The world raising voice or suggesting will not help unless we take the two NETRIS to task.
I have been hinting abt this from the start and Asif knows about that too—question is how to bring this two to STADIUM for a face to face –open not secret or closed door–meeting to talk about all cleaning process to go for the present elections—-all they r doing is beating about th bush–however now is not the time to discuss about who is at fault–BUT to decide on course of activity and this should be done by these two only along with present set of 10 Advisers only; witness will be Media personnels only–as they will print the full text of agreements and the Media plus the Citizen will monitor the progress of this points settled— thats the only way now.
If we bring in all Inmternational Personnels to negotiate –all you will hear that the NETRIS ahve pointed fingers at each other–
NOw first of all I need to know if Asif is in Bangladesh and or in US for I need to discuss with him–strategy for support from Dristipat members–just Black Badge display wont help–but YES we must wear it and I have started to do that.
UNless this step is adopted we will continue to be in deep water and we face terrible security problem if not Civil war–meantime the prices in the market are so exhorbitantly high that soon people will have to starve–and the opposition knows but doesnt care a damn because they think it will affect the Govt. n that will mean they will get less votes — what wrong ideas they have.
so lets hear from Asif and all dristipat members here about this opinion. Then we shall work out a programme.
Through Kawsar Jamal,Naima and hopefully Abdullah Dewan we can organise more support.
I wish to clarify here that I am no politician and o not wish to be one–but right now the problem is the system here which should be cleaned and we need to begin with the NETRIS here–or elase we r seeing the cropping of new parties all in the same style which will become as bad as these two and their alliances.
Awaiting to hear yr responses– CRICISIZE but think of the WAY any alternative is also welcome.
November 28th, 2006 at 10:18 am
girl fight!! woohoo.
lord avebury, the policy exchange and perhaps this forum are very AL leaning.
fair enough, freedom of concious and all that. but will there be any other voice in the debate to contest what he says?
But why all this ‘free and fair’ smokescreen, it doesnt wash, and it probably will create more suspicion and hostility from the incumbents.
November 28th, 2006 at 10:44 am
Fug,
Asking for a fair election is/and never was a party thing. If AL was in BNP’s place and vice versa, we would have done the same. Everyone is for it. Let BNP-Jamat-Hamas or whoever come to power in a fair election, none of us will mind. But come on, use facts to counter facts rather than labeling it a smokescreen. Plenty of facts are out there in this blog to prove so. Just because someone does not agree with you does not mean, he/she is supporting the party that you are not supporting. Just because 90% of the country wanted Aziz to be out does not mean all of these 90% will vote for AL. Rather half of them will. It is unfair to call them Awami lenient because their stand on election happened to match with Awami League’s.
November 28th, 2006 at 11:27 am
BDNews24 poll again: Is it believable that the poll says
Yes - 468 ( 25.48% )
No - 1369 ( 74.52% )
No being people who do not think new CEC was appointed in unfair fashion?
As I pointed out before, bdnews does not require registration to vote in this poll. They have a cookie, which can be circumvented by deleting the cookie from your hard drive. Can someone take this up with them?
November 28th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
asif bhai,
chill.
I wont deconstruct the 90% figure for ‘Aziz out’.
and i dont have the time to go into fact construction, I applaud this blog for its searching-ness.
But what i see from avebury, in parliament, at soas, at policy exchange… is that this cuddly aristo has a stance that doesnt give the ‘other side’ the fluent voicing that we collectively need to move forward. Ok the other side is retentive, but still.
Are there any other election issues?, or is it this going to be completely framed around civil servants and electoral artefacts.
the longer it is top of the agenda, the longer the opposition has a monopoly on the internationally heard discourse.
am i making sense?
November 29th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Asif,
Where did you get the weird data of 90 vs. 10?
Do you think only 10% people are with 4-party alliance and 90% with 14-party?
It’s more than the weirdest. Only Jamat has about 10% of support base and they never swing or waver and a kind of fixed deposit as 14-party has 10% of Hindu votes, another fixed deposit for Boat Marka. And moreover, I think there are another 15-20% blind Bangladeshi Nationalists and Zia fans, as is also true for Awami League to have 15-20% blind secularism and Mujib fans.
So 60% people are like registered voter equally divided in two poles.
So if you believe in 90% vs 10% and if there is neutral free election now, BNP will bag only 3×10=30 seats and Awami-alliance 270 seats is nothing but a wistful thinking.
If somebody thinks like that, is just living in the foolests’ paradise and will indulge in spurious self-conceit and self-deceit.
Thanks.
November 30th, 2006 at 2:19 am
Abu Yousuf, did you read my comment?
I said:
Just because 90% of the country wanted Aziz to be out does not mean all of these 90% will vote for AL. Rather half of them will. It is unfair to call them Awami lenient because their stand on election happened to match with Awami League’s.
So since you did not understand it, let me deconstruct it for you. Not ALL BNP supporters support EVERYTHING BNP Does and vice versa for AL.
As per that logic if I am a BNP supporter and I want Aziz to be out, then it does not mean I will vote for AL. Similarly a lot of people are against aborodh but not necessarily they are for BNP. My source of the data was channel I vox poll.
November 30th, 2006 at 8:20 am
on this crazy cat internet polls
The population wasnt asked about Aziz really now was it?
Maybe some (less than 2000) internet connected folks who are into political stuff and like typeing themselves to distraction found a poll. Lets honour our deshi people by resisting the urge to put words in their mouths on these matters?
BDNEWS is often used as source infomation on the AL website, what is its corporate origin?
About the electoral roll issue, that seems to have sunk Aziz…
When i was gram side a while ago, i saw people (eg. the Hindu village post master type, the Muslim school master) busy compiling voters lists (of the mouza i guess).
I wondered what methods were (supposedly) being used for the mammoth task.
and how things like.
- commuting, and
- travelling
- having several residences
- the lamoness of census data
- the lamoness of NGO orgined data
were taken into account by those who aggregated all the data.
Its a very complex task, Im not sure if GIS was used properly, but looking at the underdeveloped state of the Bhumi office and other govt departments I doubt whether the skill was there to do it in the short amount of time alloted. It takes l5-20 years to do a whole districts worth of new naqsha maps for good ness sake!
I think between them CEGIS and BCAS, two fine scientific, humane and professional institutions should be given a joint contract.
We should continue with the advisors, get a scientifically rigorous electoral role underway, let the political parties pummel eachother out of existance (preferably somewhere out of the way) and have fresh political parties.
December 3rd, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Details for the househere
Prothom Alo Report here
http://www.prothom-alo.org/archive/news_details_home.php?dt=2006-12-02&issue_id=93&nid=MjAwNg==
January 8th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
We need to remind the LORDS that Bangladesh is NOT part of their empire anymore and they are not our LORD anymore. We have problems like any other country in the world and we could solve those problems ourselves.