NOT too long ago, in fact not till the ruling party decided to sit with the BNP and the National Unity Front for talks in early November on holding the forthcoming elections, the general feeling was that the country was headed for a repeat of the 2014 elections and the ruling party was set to return to power for a third consecutive term, effortlessly. Then the ruling party rejected all the seven major demands of the BNP-Unity Front, including elections under a non-party government and the dissolution of the 10th parliament in the talks. Yet, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the National Unity Front decided to contest in the polls.

The decision of the BNP-Unity Front to go to the elections under the ruling party’s terms should have caused great excitement in the party. The ruling party should have felt that it had killed two birds in one shot; that it had succeeded in getting the BNP and the opposition to go to the polls that meant that the next elections will not be controversial and with the elections under its terms, a pliant Election Commission and politicised civil bureaucracy and law enforcement agencies, its victory in the elections was a certainty.

Instead, many ruling party leaders have expressed fears for the lives of their supporters after the unexpected decision of the BNP-Unity Front to contest in the coming polls. That fear has increased even after the Election Commission favoured the ruling party in another big way. The commission rejected the applications of a large of BNP candidates, including that of Khaleda Zia. All of a sudden, the ruling party, which was not too long ago expressing confidence that it would remain in power as long as it wanted, is expressing fears that it may lose power and with it, the lives of hundreds of thousands of its supporters.
However, there is clearly no level playing field for the opposition parties. Their candidates, in particular, those from the BNP, are in a minefield and not really in an election field. The ruling party’s current apprehensions over the elections are nevertheless not difficult to understand. It had expected that the BNP would boycott the elections and take their movement to the streets allowing the law enforcement agencies to size them up and blame them for the violence the same way it had done in 2014. In fact, with that objective in mind, the ruling party had systematically withdrawn all democratic space for the BNP since the 2014 elections and compounded that predicament with politically motivated court cases, incarceration, enforced disappearances, et cetera against BNP activists/supporters. Khaleda Zia was taken to jail to be the catalyst of the ruling party’s strategy to provoke the BNP to conflict and violence for a repeat of 2014 elections.

The BNP anticipated the ruling party’s strategy. Khaleda Zia asked her supporters not to be provoked by the action of the ruling party. In fact, at the time she went to jail and from jail as well, her instruction for her supporters has been to pursue their objectives the peaceful way. She asked them to even put her incarceration aside and focus instead on restoring democracy to the country and the rights of the people to vote. The BNP’s non-violent path has had the desired impact. It did not allow the law enforcement agencies to size up BNP activists and supporters who are ready for both the elections as well as to fight should the ruling party have other intentions. The BNP’s non-violent path also helped get the foreign powers, including India, off its back. Leading to the 2014 elections, these powers and India had openly and successfully used violence by the BNP-Jamat to oppose it that was a net benefit for the ruling party.

The BNP did itself even a greater favour when it delinked from the Jamaat and forged an alliance with the National Unity Front which was also totally unexpected for the ruling party. The non-violent path helped the BNP shed its image as a party that favoured violence and extremism. Its delinking from Jamaat (that was inevitable anyway because Jamaat has lost its registration with the Election Commission, meanwhile) helped it shed its alleged anti-liberation stance, an accusation that had earned it great disfavour from a great number of people leading to the 2014 elections. The unity with pro-liberation parties led by Dr Kamal Hossain, Kader Siddique, ASM Abdur Rab and Mahmudur Rahman Manna has been another big factor in the recent developments that has gone against the ruling party strategy for returning to power. It has given the BNP the right to claim that it is a pro-liberation force, a claim that has been further strengthened after the parties in the National Unity Front accepted the BNP’s election symbol of the paddy sheaf as their election symbol as well.

Thus, quite suddenly the ruling party is facing an election that by most accounts it will find difficult to win where not too long ago it was expecting to go to power easily. And it is not just that its path to a third term has suddenly become difficult by the BNP’s non-violent path, its decision to contest, its alliance with the Unity Front sans Jamaat; it will have to convince the voters that the charges against its 10 years’ rule of humongous corruption particularly of the plundering and looting of the critical banking sector, systematic destruction of the institutions, massive deterioration in law and order and systematic withdrawal of democratic space for establishing a one-party rule, are not true.

That may not be easy because the ruling party has just one major card to dismiss these charges that most voters consider to be true, the card of economic development. The ruling party had started playing that card many months ago when the United Nations gave Bangladesh the green signal for being on the road to a middle-income country by 2026. It is now seeking a third term on that claim: that the country needs the Awami League for the economic well being of the country and its people. That claim did not find much traction outside the ruling party when first made. The failure to deliver the Padma bridge dented that claim considerably although the claim itself is a fair one. Nevertheless, the baggage of negatives it is carrying with people now getting ready to vote is too heavy to be overcome by the claim of economic development alone which has been uneven allowing a small number of people to become rich at the expense of the vast majority.

An eerie silence is prevailing in Dhaka although there is news in the media of violence outside Dhaka. By word of mouth, it is widely being said that the opposition activists, particularly those from the BNP, are being made to run from pillar to post for fear of being arrested, leading a major Dhaka daily newspaper to state that while the ruling party candidates are going about campaigning unhindered, the opposition candidates, particularly those of the BNP, are busy running to and from courts to fight cases galore against them. Their supporters are running and hiding from the law enforcement agencies in fear of being arrested. Yet, an air of hope and expectation is prevailing in the opposition camp that is united in its purpose while one of fear and uncertainty is prevailing in the ruling party that is also having problems uniting its allies.

The election scenario is now clear. Unless something very unexpected occurs in the next three weeks, the ruling party will face a strong and united opposition. The elections will be fought largely between two symbols. The ruling party and its allies will fight it under the Awami League’s symbol of the boat and the BNP and its allies under the BNP’s paddy sheaf. The election will be on the performance of the ruling for the past 10 years, particularly in the past five years, and the issues of 1971 have dramatically disappeared. The elections will also be fought with the new generations that constitute a large section of the voters, upset and angry with the ruling party over the excesses of the law enforcement agencies during the recent movements over the quotas and road accidents. The foreign powers including India that had opposed the BNP in 2014 are now serious that the next elections must be free, fair and transparent.

The big question in the minds of most people at present is how the ruling party and its law enforcement agencies deal with the sudden changes in the politics of the country that have gone against the ruling party and in favour of the opposition. Are they going to allow the voters to vote freely, fairly and in a transparent manner and honour the outcome of such an election? These are all million-dollar questions and no one has a crystal ball to predict anything. Nevertheless, a fear of conflict over the elections is deepening in most minds as the country moves closer towards its tryst with destiny.

M Serajul Islam is a former career ambassador.