The New Nation - Internet Edition

THE nation elects today the Ninth Parliament for a return to elected government. An air of festivity is observed all over as the contesting parties and their candidates worked in campaigns to attract votes in their favour. In the process candidates with pledges to perform better have approached almost all voters or their families. The major political parties have come up with election manifestoes in a bid to prove each other's superiority in political, economic, social and cultural thoughts and programmes.

This democratic exercise is the ultimate accountability of political leaders to the electorate. The election is being held after a gap of nearly two years as the January 22, 2007 election was postponed following its boycott by a major political alliance on the ground of lack of arrangement to hold a credible election and the threat of social unrest and disturbance that it posed. Since then the new government and the new Election Commission have introduced some reforms to the electoral process. The political parties have been registered afresh with some changes to their constitutions.

The number of political parties contesting the election has come down to 38 from 54 in 2001. With it the number of candidates has also come down to 1555 from 1935 in 2001. In the last election the Awami League contested alone while the BNP did it in association with three other parties. This time the constituencies have been re-demarcated keeping an eye on even distribution of voters. The Election Commission has deployed law enforcing agencies to ensure peaceful conduct of elections. Army has been deployed as a strike force to support them, if need be. The people looks forward to success of the polling.