Drishtipat Blog

This is going to be an overtly political post. It’s going to ask a set of questions that have come up from Monday’s local government elections. How one answers most, if not all, of these questions will depend on one’s personal political views. And in many cases, there will be strong disagreements. We should acknowledge, indeed celebrate, such disagreements for they are the stuff democracy is built with. We look forward to healthy debate on these questions.

(And we will not tolerate personal attacks, juvenile namecalling, or irrelevant comments).

1. Why did Awami League win?

Just in case anyone needs a reminder: AL won the mayor offices in four city councils (Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal and Sylhet) and 8 of 9 municipalities. The table at the end of this report provides the city council results.

On the face of it, AL’s wins are quite remarkable. Of the four cities, only Sylhet previously had an AL mayor. Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal have not voted AL in any election since the 1970s. AL lost a bye-election in the parliamentary seat of Rajshahi city in 1973. For AL to win these cities, and in case of Rajshahi and Khulna by convincing margins, would probably imply some major political tectonic shifts. What could they be?

A number of conjectures can be made.

Perhaps anti-AL vote in these cities were split? But this doesn’t appear to have been the case in Rajshahi and Khulna - in both these cities there were clear two-way fights. And newspapers across ideological spectrum (regime-supporting Prothom Alo and Amader Shomoy, progressive-secular Shamokal-Janakantha, Ershad-allied Inqilab, nationalist-Islamist Naya Diganta and Amar Desh) reported of a clear two-way contests.

Perhaps BNP voters stayed home? Well, the turnout actually was quite high, so it’s hard to accept that answer right away (but there is a snag - see question 2).

Or may be AL attracted people who had previously never voted AL? One part of this might be the Ershad factor - perhaps the Ershad-alliance does work, perhaps the old general has supporters in these areas who had cast their lot with AL. Another part of this might be that new voters have turned out for AL. This could happen because of the anti-incumbency factor, these cities have been run by anti-AL politicians for the past generation, and anyone growing up since the late 1970s may well want to give AL an opportunity to govern. Which of these effects, if any, are at play? How would we know?

2. Can we trust these results?

Elections in Bangladesh, indeed anywhere with large population, is a hard to manage. So undoubtedly there were irregularities. The question is really about the extent of such irregularities. At least in one case, Barisal, there are serious concerns about whether irregularities bordered on affecting the voters’ verdict. And more broadly, we noted that some of Election Commission’s actions can be called shenanigans.

How would we know if ‘certain quarters’ were up to no good? How do we know that the election turn out was indeed as high? Presumably the fact that the defeated candidates have accepted the result in Khulna and Rajshahi is a good indication. But questions remain about Barisal and EC’s broader moves.

A related issue here is the media’s role. Media, and other pundits, are not expected to get things right before they happen. Forecasting is hard, particularly about the future. Even in the US, very few saw Sen Obama’s candidacy in January. That said, one has to ask why there aren’t more reports like this?

3. What happened to Jamaat?

While the Naya Diganta piece linked above broke the possibility of a PDP surge in Barisal, it also emphasised the importance of Jamaat for the jatiyatabadi and Islami mullobodher politics. Given Naya Diganta’s ownership, it’s not surprising that they would overestimate Jamaat’s strength. But most papers suggested that Jamaat’s support would be crucial.

In the event, Jamaat’s vote was obviously not enough to stop AL. So what happened? Is Jamaat not as strong as everyone thinks/fears/hopes? Or were they not in the field? Again, how would we know?

4. How important were local factors? And a corollary of this is that how much effect will this have on national politics?

Presumably in Sylhet the incumbent Mayor Kamran rode on a sympathy wave. But why couldn’t Rajshahi or Khulna BNP rely on similar waves? And if AL could use local factors to their advantage in this election, then why won’t they be able to replicate this feat in December? After all, parliament election is really 300 local elections, each with 500 even more local centres.

5. How important, if at all, were national factors?

Did AL’s potential image problem matter at all? If AL could make an issue of sympathy for their imprisoned mayor in Sylhet, then why couldn’t BNP make an issue of their tortured leaders (including the party chief and her sons)?

On the other hand, if there were anti-incumbency factors at play with the first time voters, why wouldn’t we expect that to happen across the country? In the 33 years since the 1975 coups, AL was in power for only five. If you are someone born after Mujib’s assassination, and you don’t like the way things are in Bangladesh, who would you blame more - AL, BNP or the army?

6. Which way for the parties?

It seems that 1/11 has not changed the fundamentals of our political polarisation. We still have two sides: muktijuddher chetona and progressive ideas on the one side, and jatiyatabad and Islami mullobodh on the other.

One of them, AL, seems to be committed to elections and deals. To the extent that a deal with an ex-general can give them power, perhaps they will stick to at least one deal. But why should they stick to any deals signed with a uniformed general? If they can win elections convincingly on their own, why should they accept an overlord?

And what about the other side? Why shouldn’t we conclude that Khondokar Delwar’s ‘boycott strategy’ has failed? But at the same time, why shouldn’t we conclude that Mannan Bhuiyan’s ‘reform strategy’ of creating a King’s party hasn’t also failed? Why shouldn’t we conclude that the anti-AL factions have to unite under one banner (independent of any anti-incumbency issues) to stop an Awami win in December? And if we conclude that the anti-AL factions do unite, who will they unite under? And if they can unite under a popular leader, will they be able to pull off a repeat of 1991 if not 2001?

7. Will the bhodrolokes learn?

The Election Commission and its civil society allies seem to be dismayed that the election seems to have returned ‘old fashioned’ politicians. I’m reminded of an anti-Stalinist poem by Brecht:

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

Will our bhodrolokes learn that society changes in its own way, and any attempt to impose political changes from above is doomed to failure? Will they learn that the people of Sylhet are far better placed than the Dhaka club elites to judge whether Kamran (who may well be corrupt, and ought to have his day in the court) is the best man for their city?

(Cross-posted at Mukti).