Chief Adviser of Bangladesh’s interim government Prof Muhammad Yunus has been saying for a long time that the next general election in Bangladesh will take place sometime between December 2025 and June 2026. He has been vouching for this timeframe to let the reform process go into motion.
What Yunus has meant by repeating this timeline is that the reform proposals submitted by all the commissions set up by the interim government will take some time to come into reality, as changing the government structure is a long and strenuous process. By adhering to this electoral timeline, Yunus has been asking us to show some patience before we choose the next government to run the state affairs.
But what are we doing instead? It is clear that the country is divided into two groups on this matter. One group wants early election, possibly by next December, while the other group agrees with Yunus and has no objection if the election happens later than December.
The first group is led by none other than Bangladesh Nationalist Party, a political party which seems to have become power hungry due to not being fed the political favours for more than a decade. And the second group, albeit a moderate one, is headed by the brand new National Citizen Party, which seems overwhelmed by BNP’s aggressiveness and is thinking maybe that an election held too soon will not give them enough time to reach the country’s core, which is people at the grassroots, and build a political momentum and image among these people.
Currently, BNP is the only political party in Bangladesh which has prior experience of winning elections with big margins and running the country by forming governments of its own
What happens if elections are held early without much reforms in the state structure? This will mean that the same people who have expanded their roots deep into the state’s many agencies, for example the Election Commission and the local government institutions, will remain unchanged. These are the people who had helped ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to hold two farcical elections by snatching the voting rights of the people and filling up the ballot boxes the night before the election date.
This will also mean that the law enforcement agencies, especially the police, will remain the same, with no visible changes in its rank and file. As a result, those police officers who had failed to ensure proper guarding of the polling centres and ensure security of the voters during the AL era will be deployed again, creating a disastrous law and order situation where political clashes before, during and after the election have strong possibilities to occur.
If elections are held early, it will give BNP a winning hand. Their statements clearly show that they are hopeful about winning the next election and forming the next government, as the power vacuum created by the elimination of Awami League has made the playing field unjustifiably tilted towards them. Currently, BNP is the only political party in Bangladesh which has prior experience of winning elections with big margins and running the country by forming governments of its own. Besides, since Awami League and its associated wings went into hiding after the mass uprising in July-August last year, BNP’s grassroots activities have increased, with media reports showing that BNP is focusing all of their energies to take over the control of the local political sphere, from strengthening their field level political clout to making their intentions clear through statements made by their leaders.
These activities have made BNP the largest and most organised political force in Bangladesh right now, and their confidence is so high that they are threatening the interim government albeit indirectly to step down as soon as possible, failure to do which will otherwise prompt them to destabilise the country through staging tougher movements. It’s a matter of wonder how can a political party which acted like a little kitten during the AL era has found such strong voice and is acting in such an unruly manner.
And for NCP, they are constantly failing to uphold the promise that they had shown during their birth, with charishmatic and dedicated leaders like Nahid Islam leading the mantle. Their immaturity is at its peak, and they are losing the political ground to BNP on a daily basis. Nahid is totally silent, no one can hear his voice on anything that matters to the state, and the other leaders like Hasnat and Sarjis are busy posting on facebook, leaving the streets to be occupied by other forces, especially BNP and the Islamist ones.
What’s more damaging is that NCP has two of their founding figures within the current government, namely Asif Mahmud and Mahfuj Alam, who also have become controversial due to their dubious role both as student leaders and government advisers, their lack of any impacts as advisers and the allegations against them of influencing the government’s decisions by pressurising Yunus and the other advisers on behalf of NCP, albeit secretly.
To make it straight, if election takes place sooner, it will be beneficial for BNP as they have the greatest chance of winning it on a landslide. And if election happens later, it will give NCP some time to take some breath and find some solid footing in the political sphere of Bangladesh. But there is something more important than the wishes and daydreams of these two political parties, and it is the implementation of the reform proposals which the experts have painstakingly put together and presented to Yunus, hoping that this man will do some magic and will be able to bring some real changes to the state institutions and political sphere of the country.
We all know that Yunus has been quite patient till now. But how can one old, wise man fight so many unruly, impatient newbies and old sloths?
Impatience begets disaster. The country’s politicians should remember that.
Muhammad A. Bashed is the operational editor of Muktipotro
