Moktar Sardar, a man in his early 40s, was leading a group of boys in Ramna in central Dhaka. The boys’ green T-shirts were embossed with the symbol of the Awami League and a slogan — ‘Vote for the symbol, the boat, on the election day’ . On Sunday, many millions will indeed come out to vote for the Awami League, and the party is expected to do well in the poll. But is it a fair election?
“I think it is,” said Mr. Sardar, who is one of the two presidents of the election committee of the Home Minister in constituency Dhaka 12. “But I wonder why they (the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, or BNP) are not campaigning at all,” he said. “We can’t identify the Opposition if they can’t campaign, despite the fact that the BNP’s candidate in the area is the notorious strongman Saiful Alam Nirab.” He indicated that the Opposition may have “some nefarious designs” for Sunday.
Violence has already marred the election process. “There was violence. But considering panchayat poll violence in West Bengal, it is nothing... nearly 50 died in Bengal,” said a senior Indian government official posted in Dhaka. While “all parties have been victims of violence”, it appeared that the “Opposition party candidates have borne the brunt of most violent incidents,” said Earl Miller, the U.S. Ambassador in Dhaka.
Nursing his drink in the high table of the historic Dhaka Club, a city-based industrialist said the intensity of violence varies depending on one’s political affiliation. “And everyone has a strong political affiliation in Dhaka, like in Kolkata,” he said.
Jahid, an Awami League supporter, took this correspondent out for a ride in and around Jatrabari, in the southern neighbourhood of Dhaka. This correspondent felt that the number of madrasas in Jatrabari, a deeply congested area, has gone up by five times in the last 10 years, when he last visited there. “Five? No. Fifty times!” said Mr. Jahid’s elder brother from the back seat of the car.
The brothers, with a good understanding of Bangladesh politics, concluded that voters from the mosques and the madrasas, many of which are unregistered, will certainly vote against the Awami League. Large, unregulated contributions from foreign countries fund these institutions, they said. Intelligence officials of Bangladesh agree that the ruling party’s biggest challenge is “to win over this community, which perhaps is aligned to a relatively more radical version of Islam”. To influence the community, the party has aligned with the apparently apolitical Hifazat-e-Islam, a madrasa education institution.
Radical ideologies
“We are working with Hifazat to broaden the curriculum to ensure that they are not snared into radical and extremist ideologies,” said Gowher Rizvi, the foreign policy adviser of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. “On the other hand, the character of the BNP and Jamaat is showing signs that they may not be averse to amends,” said Shakeel Anwar, a London-based journalist with BBC Bengali Service, covering Bangladesh elections since 1991. “For the first time, I have not heard them saying anything against India... interesting.”
Arup Rahee, a musician and writer based in Dhaka, said the character of the Awami League and the BNP is changing with society. The division of the main rival parties as secular and non-secular no longer holds today, he said.
In a few more hours, it will be decided who will govern Bangladesh. Whoever is elected, the new government has a host of challenges ahead of it — from tackling growing extrremism to the relationship with India and China in the coming years.
Suvojit Bagchi works for The Hindu and is currently in Dhaka.
