The New Nation - Internet Edition

Hasnat Abdul Hye

The people of Bangladesh, nearly eight million of them as voters, have given their verdict on the eligibility and credibility of political parties to rule the country for the next five years. The results show a resounding victory for the mohajote, the grand alliance, led by Bangladesh Awami League. The support given by the voters to the mohajote has been both unequivocal and unprecedented.

No party or alliance has been able to capture so many seats in the Jatiya Sangsad, 262 according to unofficial announcement, in recent history. By the same token, never has a party or an alliance that was in power before election has been clobbered so badly at the polls as has been the case with the 4-party alliance which won a measly 36 seats, again on the basis of unofficial results. Needless to say, the confirmation of the 'unofficial’ results into official is a mere formality and only a matter of time.

Just as the win with such a wide margin was beyond the wildest imagination of the mohajote, similarly the dismal performance of their candidates must have come as a rude shock to the 4-party alliance. Even the election pundits and professional pollsters, who are adept at making forecasts before election, found themselves ludicrously out of sync with the ground reality. Looking at the massive rallies where the Awami League and BNP chiefs addressed, many pollsters predicted a neck-to-neck contest. Some observers even gave BNP-led alliance an edge on the basis of the whistle-stop campaigning by the BNP chief that was awe inspiring to them. Following past experiences, observers estimated popularity of a party by the number of meetings held and the size of the crowd. In this traditional approach two factors were ignored. Firstly, the mind-set of the 31 percent of voters who have been newly enfranchised was not analysed. Similarly, the perspective of the majority of voters who were women was not taken into consideration. These two groups represented a new 'vote bank’; they were not die-hard supporters of any party. They voted on the basis of issues, records of the political parties while in power and policy orientation of the parties on important issues. It is now apparent that these two groups constituted the independent vote bank and exercised their free will to choose candidates and the parties. The independent voters, comprising the new voters and the majority of women voters found Awami League-led mohajote not the 'best’ of all parties but 'better’ than the alternative i.e. the 4-party alliance, and cast their vote accordingly. The votes received should not go into the heads of Awami League-led mohajote because they should realise the nuances of the support given to them. The mohajote should have the humility and perspicacity to understand that the voters hesitating to grade them as 'best’ have only given them the benefit of their doubt. In other words, they have to vindicate their win through good governance and promotion of democratic culture after they take up the reins of power.

The 4-party alliance-led by BNP should accept their defeat with grace and equanimity. Allegations of rigging and false votes will not hold water and appear as credible this time. Rigging and false vote could not succeed in so many polling centres without detection by officials and neutral observers. Moreover, the 4-party alliance did not raise serious objection while voting was going on. The alliance should therefore, look at the result for what it is: a judgement given on the performance of the 4-party alliance during 2001-2006 when they were in power. The election results are also a verdict on the policies on various issues and ideology propagated by the 4-party alliance. The voters have rejected the alliance because of their misrule during five years and regressive policies on many social issues. If the last two years failed to be a wakeup call to BNP and its alliance, the drubbing at the polls should be one now. All the political parties need to reform their organisation and activities but BNP and its alliance need to do so to a greater extent.

The voters have demonstrated their maturity in making decisions about candidates and parties. Both the victors and the defeated parties should take lessons from the verdict given.