Mon 28 Apr 2008
What is most interesting in this report is that this is the first international research report which terms the 1/11 changes as a military coup and also highlights the western diplomats involvement in it.
The caretaker government, along with the international community, must take credible steps to restore democracy to Bangladesh ahead of the December 2008 general elections. Although the caretaker government insists its plans to stamp out corruption and hold general elections by December are on track, its achievements have been patchy. There is an immediate need for dialogue between the government and the main parties. Ideally, a new consensus would not only cover how to hold elections but also develop commitments on post-election behaviour and democratic functioning. International actors should recognise that the priority is to maintain pressure for timely and credible elections.
Read the interesting full report here
By the way, what is this international crisis group? It is one of the most prominent international organizations that does political analysis on countries . It is based out of Washington D.C. but also has offices in Brussels and in NYC. Their research is known to be very indepth and incisive; and they provide comprehensive political context and recommendations to international governments, world bank and other organizations. This is the first such report they did on Bangladesh. This is what Time had to say about them.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:10 am
It is a well-researched and balanced report. Thanks for putting it up, Asif.
Whether one
(a) Supports this Government,
(b) Despises it,
(c) Initially welcomed the events of 1/11 but is now disappointed with the developments,
it is difficult to disagree with the analysis. The main strength of this report is that it calls a spade a spade. By the same token, people who have trouble digesting the truth will find this publication highly unpalatable.
Any idea as to who the writers are?
April 29th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Agreed. The research is thorough and not superficial. Must read for specially those who argue from an utopian point of view without being in touch with the reality based world.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:54 am
Balanced report. I strongly agree with the coclusion. At the end of the day, political parties are the real players. If they dont step up, our future is dim.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Kaiser (#1): The ICG does not divulge who the authors are, as you can guess from this (and a few other reports from places like Afghanistan, Somalia, etc.) they tend not to disclose that.
It is a good report and their stuff on other flashpoints/hotspots is also excellent. Love them or hate them, they’ve become a must read for a lot of policymakers.
One mistake in the original post though, this is not their first report on Bangladesh. The first one
(http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/asia/south_asia/121_bangladesh_today.pdf)
is an excellent study on Islamist political parties in Bangladesh. As a matter of fact, their general research paper(s) on Islamic Fundamentalism is (are) superb.
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:19 pm
ICG recommendations are NOT NEW revelations from heaven. They are already known and obvious directions.
But based on behaviour pattern of politicians of last 15 years, the foregone conclusion is that POLITICIANS will NOT do their part of the recommendations, even if the CTG do theirs.
In fact that is why, we are in this predicanment today. ICG does NOT have a contingency plan, nor do they know THAT REALITY of BD - what if either party does not do their part?
So, my question is - under this backdrop - where (apparently ROGUE) politicians will not do their part, then what is the nation to do?
Do bloggers have a future prediction for that?
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Let’s hear about your plan A first.
Let’s not assume anything and let CTG being the driver take the initiatives first since they are the one claiming to call for a different type of politics. THey are the one settinig the agenda here.
K Gazi bhai, jotoi galmondo koren, Bangladesh-e Khaleda-Hasina is a reality. Ki ar korben, ei ‘ashikhkhito’-der desh niye. Ei jonno to desher baire achen, bhalo achen. Noile to anek agey eder shorai dewa jeto. The only way NOT to make them a martyr is to fight them POLITICALLY and through FAIR means. Otherwise, they will play victims and they will be the underdog and if you don’t know who the general public roots for, watch Rocky this weekend. Yes, they always root for the underdog.
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:25 am
It’s all politicians’ fault, eh? 16 months into the emergency, and none of the ‘known’ corrupt people can be convicted in an open transparent court through due process, and it’s the politicians who are to be blamed. Really?
And don’t give us the shibboleth of ‘it has to be this way because these guys are too powerfull’. In 1991, within 6 months of his resignation, Ershad was convicted in an open court of possessing illegal arms. He had the best legal support money could buy in Bangladesh. He was tried without any emergency ordinance or decree violating his fundamental rights.
So, there is a precedence in Bangladesh for trying powerful corrupt people without kangaroo court. Why didn’t the regime seek that path? They didn’t go down that route because of politics. People who fail to understand this are really living in fool’s paradise.
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 pm
If Khaleda-Hasina is the reality for the Bangladesh, then we should accept the reality of the army intervention as well. Unless we remove the politicians like Hasina-Khaleda gong, phony democratic practice by this gong can not stop the army meddling in BD politics. Like it or not this is the veracity in respect of Bangladeshi politics.
May 3rd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Asif #6,
A). Let Plan A, on this thread be the ICG plan, where everyone suddenly surrenders ALL their issues and says “let bygones be bygones”, lets follow the ICG bible and work together for the country.
- But we know for sure thats not gonna happen
B). Given that we dont want to return to pre 1/11, then we must UPDATE the CORE setup of governance.
C). We need to put our foot down against abuse of system, against the reality of Khaleda-Hasina.
Example Old story - When a complaint was once sent to Sheikh Mujib that his sons were rampantly abusing the system (violent mastani etc), he replied:
“Ora to chele manush, ora to eishob korbei, oderke ami aar ki bolbo!” He was nations leader at that time.
we should NOT give such license to Hasina-Khaleda either, to continue.
My basic Plan B is posted in the “Exit Strategy” thread.
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Kgazi,
Please provide reference for aforementioned story about Mujib.
May 5th, 2008 at 4:29 am
Kgazi,
Still waiting for your response. If you cant prove it then at least show manliness and accept your mistake.
May 5th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Raihan,
There is no mistake, this is a well known eye-witness story - like many in the 70’s. Ask anyone who lived in Dhaka or witnessed politics in those days. These reports dont come with references, only legends.
I also heard eye-witness reports of SH and KZ also while they visited USA, from fellow NRB’s in USA who reported to me - those dont have any references either.
If you dont believe it, just FOCUS on issues A,B and C in #9.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Raihan, eveyone knows these crimes. Just like everyone knows about all the other crimes about all those corrupt politicians. In fact, you also know about these crimes, but are pretending that you don’t know because you are corrupt politician, or related to them. You should be put in the remand, and then have all your rights denied, evidence and reference and proof are not needed, because everyone knows.
That sarcasm out of the way, some interesting tid bits from the report that should be discussed by the reality-based folks.
1. The redrawing of the constituency boundaries are likely to have major impacts on the election even without any manipulation. To the extent that AL’s vote bank is more rural, the increased representation of urban areas (entirely consistent with the population patterns) should make it easier for the anti-AL parties, no?
2. The section on the Islamists, in page 25, has an interesting discussion about the ramifications of a war crimes trial for the political prospects of Jamaat and other Islamist parties.
3. The report is almost silent on the role of India in the post 1/11 situation. One doesn’t have to be a paranoid anti-Indian (or an anti-Hindu bigot) to note the major shift in the Indo-Bangla relationship since 1/11. Not discussing this change is a major ommission.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Jyoti, I am not sure that redrawing constituency boundaries would necessarily disfavour the AL as you mention in point no. 1.
Urban areas with access to the electronic media tend to reflect the national mood rather than party loyalty. If you look back at the results of the last three elections, these constituencies show large swings. So in 1990, BNP won most of these seats; AL did the same in 1996; finally, BNP took them back in 2001.
May 5th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I think among the electoral constituencies being redrawn, BNP won 88 and AL won 21 in the last election, according to a newspaper report.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Kaiser/Tacit, let me restate my point in this question: does the redrawing reduce the number of safe AL seats and increase the number of safe non-AL (ie BNP in the last 3 elections) seats?
For example, BNP won 6 out of the 13 Dhaka district seats (Lalbagh in the city plus the 5 outside the city) in all three elections. So we can say that they are all safe BNP seats. Suppose these 6 seats are now redrawn into 9 seats. Other things being equal, BNP (or whoever is the successor of its politics) now enters the race with 9 safe seats instead of 6.
Similarly, suppose AL had won 3 seats in Madaripur in all three elections, but those seats are now redrawn into 2 seats. AL now loses one safe seat.
So, we need to know how many of BNP’s 88 and AL’s 21 are swing seats and how many are safe seats, and of the safe seats, how many are being amalgamated and how many are being divided into new seats.
May 7th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Jyoti, unlike say, in the UK, strongholds are rare in Bangladesh. If one looks at 1991-2001 election data the following observations are quite typical:
(1) The victory margins tend to be quite small. (I have the data but am feeling too lazy to dig it out)
(2) A seat that was won handsomely in one election is lost spectacularly in the next (Have the data …).
(3) Urban seats show massive swing. (Again, I have the data …)
Also, hidden from the data is the fact that many seats that appear to be BNP strongholds (Say, Khondoker Mosharraf’seat) can be upset with carefully chosen strategic alliances (I cannot comment specifically about Lalbagh). BNP realised this danger very late in the game and subsequently panicked.
Moreover, popular support for BNP-JI had declined to about only 16% by October 2006.
And, don’t forget that most of the BNP bigwigs are either in jail, or infighting.
Finally, the AL vote bank has held steady over the years.
So, I doubt whether gerrymandering would go against AL.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Kaiser bhai,
I will await your stats. But here is something on the web. And I hope Tacit, et al or other bloggers spend more time analyzing the trends and numbers.
This site has the comparables and from an intial look it seems quite a number of the seats have a solid pattern of voting BNP or AL over the last three elections. Take a look:
http://bdneeds.com/EAResultAll.php?sol=1
Also compare it with the seats that have been rezoned and let’s see if there is a pattern that emerges.
http://www.ecs.gov.bd/QLExternalFilesEng/correct_delimitation.pdf
May 8th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Kaiser, I’ve given my reasons why I don’t buy the argument that an AL win is a foregone conclusion in a fair election in the other threat (Unfortunate Exit Strategy by Asif).
The ‘political fundamentals’ described in that comment is based on the data here: http://elive.matamat.com/index.php
This website gives very detailed result by seat in the past three elections. Among other things, it identifies individual candidates. The seat-by-seat results can be compared with the rezoned seats as Asif suggests. But also, the information here can be checked against the list of arrests and convictions. If the allegation of systematic manipulation of the political parties to create a favourable exit/entry strategy is true, it should show up in the data. We should be able to see Hasina-Khaleda loyalists with a competitive shot being in the docks.
I hope people with some quantitative skill and knowledge of local level politics will have a crack at this. Is there any such person in the blogosphere?
May 9th, 2008 at 5:36 am
A couple of general points, Jyoti:
(1) We are a bunch of swingers! About 220 seats in Bangladesh qualify as swing constituencies to varying degrees. The National mood rather than entrenched loyalties is thus the overriding determinant of the eventual electoral outcome.
(2) A survey prior to 1/11 showed that 53% were undecided, diluting strongholds even further.
In this type of situation, it’s an incredibly difficult task to redraw constituency boundaries that would definitely favour/disfavour AL, or for that matter any party.
About the possibility of an AL victory — casual empiricism suggests that at the moment it’s on the cards. But that’s to be expected. First, there is still an anti-incumbent sentiment against BNP. Second, BNP has emerged as the party of corruption. Third, BNP is in disarray. Fourth, AL has a solid vote bank of 30%. Fifth, AL has played the sympathy card well.
However, by the end of this year all this could change. BNP could reunite; the electorate might decide that Khaleda was genuinely unaware of what her sons were doing, etc. etc.
I do agree with you on point, viz., that of the importance of constituency-specific knowledge. The data that you gather here would far more illuminating than statistical analyses (The time series is not long enough). I’ll let you know if I come across persons with this type of knowledge.
About analysing the data on the website, you are as capable as anybody.
May 10th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Kaiser, I wasn’t arguing that the rezoning will definitely hurt AL’s chances. I wondered whether it would. Any effect of the rezoning may well be mitigated by other factors.
I do, however, disagree with you that ‘national mood’ rather than party loyalties decide our elections. I’d say that electoral arithmetic is the most important factor. The basis of electoral arithmetic is manifold and include party loyalty, loyalty to the party leadership and local issues. Turnout is another factor. But swing in true sense of the word - voting for one camp this election, and then vote the other guys in the next - I sincerely doubt this is a common thing.
Let me suggest a rather simple test. Ask 100 people from your extended family, friends, work colleagues, neighbours and other acquaintances. I’d hazard a guess that very few people would have voted BNP in 1991, AL in 1996 and again BNP in 2001. You’ll find some people switching between BNP, JP and Islamists. You’ll find some people switching between AL and left. Some people might have sat one or two elections out. But genuine swingers you won’t find many.
As for the Nazim Kamran result that only 16% supported BNP-JI, the key take-away for me from that was the existence of a very large number of uncommitted voters.
are some
May 10th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Jyoti #21,
If you are talking about true RURAL votes, then asking 100 of NRB freinds and colleagues, will not give you a true figure - since most NRB’s dont have direct contact with 100 TRUE RURAL voters.
Majority of rural voters have no education, work in the farm, and depend on GOVT subsidies, urea handouts, and the quality of the local MP’s mastaans.
Their votes are based on symbols, not politics. They vote on the SIZE of the local NOUKA or DHAANER SHEESH. AL and BNP spend $millions on MASSIVE Noukas or Dhaan Statues! Harikens and Umbrellas are also popular symbols! AL and BNP have huge fights each year on allocation of symbols by govt, to their constituents.
Rural Voters ARE very much aware of govt corruption. They know how one MP stole their money to build luxury homes in their land, and the other stole all the Kombols.
Often they are paid SAREES or bags of RICE in long lines, under massive Nouka or hariken statues, before elections, to buy their votes. Bangladesh is INFAMOUS in S.Asia - for the MOST expensive political election-spenders in the whole of Asia.
There is no such thing as AL BNP loyalty among rural pop in BD. They vote on payback, salami, vote buying and MICROPHNE NOISE in their hat-bazaars.
So making numerical analyses of past results is not gonna be scientific.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:10 am
I know that rural voters are given handouts before the elections, but is there any evidence that this changes the way they actually vote?
I don’t think money by itself, unaided by political organization, can win elections in Bangladesh. Otherwise, Noor Ali, Salman F. Rahman, Omar Faruq Chowdhury, Rahimuddin Bharsha and Abdul Awal Mintu would all have been MPs by now.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:15 am
It’s very simple, Jyoti: AL and BNP have roughly 60% of the popular vote. The swing comes from the remainder.
Analyse election data, see the swing for yourself. Just do the arithmetic. It’s plain to see.
May 11th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Kaiser Shaheb, it’s not that simple. Let’s take your 60% for example. Is it 60% of the votes cast, or 60% of registered voters? Where is the turnout in this world? What about smaller parties? Is this 60% support uniform across the country? These are non-trivial questions.
I’ve done the analysis as far as can be done without local knowledge (which i have very little). That’s what I base my ‘fundamentals’ described in the other thread on.
Tacit, there is no evidence whatsoever that poor people take the money (or saree or salaami) and change their votes. This is one of those things self-styled bhodrolokes like to bandy about.
Mr Gazi, forget about the rural voters, of whom it is plain that you know precious little about. Do the exercise with yor fellow NRBs. You might be surprised with the results.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
tacit - there is no evidence either that rural voters have PERMANENT party loyalties - thats another speculation. And money is not the only factor that swings them - I gave many more factors in #22.
Kaiser - I am with you, while swingers may come from other 40%, but across all voters there will still be swingers between AL and BNP voters, as history has shown.
Jyoti - urban voters (NRB) not the issue here, they can make academic judgements, have status/contacts and can be diehard AL-BNP. Issue is Rural folks,as they are over 70% of voters. They can be bigger swing voters, since their needs are more on hunger and survival, than on Mujib or Zia.
Also, since all your comments here been based on SPECULATION, how can you pretend to be Mr Know-all?
May 11th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
KGazi, I’m not pretending to be know-it-all. In the current context, I explicitly said ‘I have very little local knowledge’. I also try to back up my argument with data as much as possible, whether it is economy or politics that I am debating. I am not going to get into a debate with you about who is better in touch with Bangladesh - readers can judge for themselves. If I have offended you in any way then I apologise.
May 12th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Let me add a bit more detail to #24 (I’ve been trying since yesterday but having computer glitches):
There are certain seats that have remained with the same party for the last three elections. The party-wise distribution is as follows:
BNP 53
AL 18
IJOF 05
JI 01
JP (M) 01
Although I am hesitant to call all the above strongholds, for the sake of argument let’s accept it as such. So, in total there are 78 strongholds.
Next, there are 55 seats where the elected party has alternated over the last three elections. These seats follow patterns like BNP, AL, BNP; or BNP, AL, IJOF. Clearly, these are swing seats.
There are also 41 marginals, and 39 seats where BNP could not have won without JI, and vice versa. These seats are vulnerable to even tiny swings.
The remaining 87 seats also show considerable swing over the years. Even a 5% swing would upset most of them.
Of course, there are many hard-core party loyalists — possibly 45%-60% of voters. However, their impact is diluted by swing voters.
In other words, if we take a sample of 100 people as Jyoti suggests, we would find groups sharply divided along party lines. However, there would still be enough floating voters to upset the proverbial applecart.
That’s why in predicting elections in Bangladesh one needs to make estimates of the swing-factor. And to do so, one needs in order of priority (1) Local knowledge; (2) National mood; and (3) Trends.
PS: What’s with the “Shaheb” appendage, Jyoti? I am happy to be called “Kaiser.”
May 12th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Jyoti #27 - this is living proof that data doesnt always show human factors, and by itself data can be useless.
BTW, if one claims to have ‘very little local knowledge’ then how can he be ‘better in touch with Bangladesh’? Regardless, as Obama says - “those who were better in touch (like G. Bush) were the ones who made the biggest mistakes”. In Bangladesh we also know what blunders they made by being better in touch!
So, lets be flexible in other’s ideas, or else we might be the ones making the blunders. Besides, I wasn’t offended - just keep up the good work.
May 13th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
KGazi Vai
…keep it up
It is very unlikely that someone can beat you in debate
May 14th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Kaiser, first up, didn’t mean anything with ’shaheb’ appendage.
Now to more substantial points. Let’s start with where we agree. There are 78 seats which haven’t changed hand. Of the rest, 55 changed to AL in 1996 and then back to a centre-right party in 2001 - let me call these ‘battleground’ seats. And then we have 167 that can be called ‘marginal’ or ‘at play’ to various degree. We agree on this.
Now, there are two possible explanations of these patterns.
1. In the battleground seats, and to various degrees in the ‘at play’ seats, there are large number of voters who voted dhaner sheesh (or langol or dari palla) in 1991 and 2001, but voted nouka in 1996. Their votes were motivated by the ‘national mood’. And this zeitgeist is the dominant factor deciding elections in Bangladesh.
2. In the battleground seats, and to various degrees in the ‘at play’ seats, there were different dynamics within the two broad political traditions in Bangladesh (I don’t think anyone here needs a history lesson, but just to clarify: left/Shadhinotar chetona/Bharoter dalal/Awami/progotishil/cult of Mujib/secular and right/jatiyatabadi/razakar/BNP/dhormiyo mullobodh/cult of Zia/Islamist). In 1991, both political traditions were fragmented, the turnout was low, and BNP won many battleground seats with 30-35% votes in a 50-55% turnout. In 1996, turnout rose, AL unified its left flank, and even though BNP raised its share of votes cast, JP made a strong showing in the battleground seats - result, AL win. In 2001, BNP covered its right flank and won almost all two horse races in the battleground and at-play seats, despite AL actually increasing its share of votes cast.
You are telling the first story. I am telling the second story. The stories are not mutually exclusive. There may very well be some truly floating voters who voted dhaner sheesh-nouka-dhaner sheesh. But I contend that the deciding voters were those who who stayed home in 1991, voted langol in 1996, and then dhaner sheesh in 2001, or voted for one of the left parties in 1991 but nouka in the two subsequent ones.
My story is directly reflected in the data. Your story could be true, but since there were no credible exit poll, it’s hard to prove it one way or other. But still, we could try with the simple, albeit not-quite-scientific, exercise I suggested.
As for prediction, the big unknown (abstracting from the shenanigans by the Election Commission) is new voters. According to Nazim Kamran Chowdhury’s research, AL won the new voters convincingly in 2001 despite the anti-incumbency factor (contradicting the zeitgeist story). As you say, it has played the sympathy card well in the past 7 years. So it may well carry the new voters in 2008, and that could be the deciding factor.