Hasina’s victory lacks credibility

The victory of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid and her Awami League Party in the parliamentary elections held on Sunday (January 7) lacks credibility.

Given the boycott by the principal Opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Awami League’s win was a foregone conclusion.

Her fourth straight win—157 of 299 seats—has come from an election boycotted by almost all the Opposition parties that mattered besides the BNP. Not alone this.

The elections recorded the lowest ever turnout, 40 per cent, amid the poll boycott call given by the rival parties.

Her increasingly authoritarian ways and jailing of over 10,000 opposition leaders and workers had rendered the exercise virtually a one-horse race where formal participation of smaller parties could merely provide a camouflage of political legitimacy.

The fact that more than half of the nation’s electorate stayed away from the polling booth itself should be enough to render the entire exercise dubious.

Mrs. Hasina has won a straight fourth term in the high office of the prime minister and an overall fifth term for her own record.

While her ways have been authoritarian all through, the lack of credibility will dog her through the entire term as her party will face only lightweights and political non-entities in the Sangsad.

This might ease her party’s way in matters of pushing legislation, but the entire process would be shorn of scrutiny and diligence the nation deserves in its effort to deal with multifarious issues staring into its eyes.

The boycott of the election is predicated on the contentious issue of a neutral caretaker government in the saddle during the election process in order to ensure that they are free and fair.

The BNP had boycotted the polls even in 2014 precisely because they were being conducted by authorities whose partisanship was manifest.

The principal warring parties have been supporting the demand only when they have been in opposition and apprehend rigging of polls.

The issue has not received the serious consideration it deserves. Doubts were cast on the non-partisanship of the nation's Election Commission as early as August last year when it published online a list of 68 'approved observers'.

Investigation by the media had found nearly half of the observers were just "names" with no track record of monitoring elections.

Some were found to have links with the ruling Awami League party, in violation of the elections law.

The suspicions about the Election Commission’s neutrality had fuelled rage and triggered agitations and had engaged the nation all through the last six months of Mrs. Hasina’s tenure.

Even the global powers like the United States and the European Union had expressed scepticism about the possibility of holding free and fair elections by the current government in Dhaka.

The US govt went to the extent of declaring that it would deny visas to Bangladeshis who “undermine democratic election”.

Elections have been fraught with rigging and ballot stuffing even during 2014 and 2018.

Endorsed as “free and fair” by handpicked observers, the Washington Post newspaper had likened the outcome to something one would expect only in North Korea.

Sheikh Hasina would remain under the spotlight due to her extremely doubtful commitment to democracy even as she navigates through serious issues such as IMF bailout and inflation running high (9.5 per cent) as economy is showing a downturn.