THE election of 2008 is regarded by some as an important watershed in the politics of Bangladesh, as an opportunity for the country to emerge from its phase of instability and enter a new period of growth and consolidation. Yet, many wonder whether Bangladesh is really poised to turn its back on the ‘old politics’ and begin an era of ‘new politics’? Will it be able to seize the moment or be condemned, as so often in the past, to miss it once again, unable to make the transition? This essay attempts to answer these questions by examining the statistics as also the deeper processes at work that have contributed to the result.

Interpretations of the election results can be bunched into two camps: one that sees it as a ‘routine swing’ away from the party in power and the other, which sees in it a ‘tectonic shift’ in the centre of gravity of Bangladesh politics. The former sees it as fitting the anti-incumbency pattern of the previous elections of 1991, 1996, and 2001, where the vote was essentially an expression of dissatisfaction with the political formation that had won a majority in the previous election and a desire to give another political formation a chance.

The latter sees it as a unique election, reading into the result a marked shift in the centre of gravity of the polity in a progressive and politically liberal direction. This shift has implications for the key political actors who will have to rework their strategy to respond to, and accommodate, these new aspirations. What are these new aspirations? Who is making them? Are they significant enough to affect electoral outcomes? Is it just a transient phase which, when it passes, the polity will revert to its old centre of gravity or does it suggest that a new centre of gravity has emerged because of several factors?

Of the two camps the one endorsing the anti-incumbency pattern thesis is more widespread. This camp is embedded in a certain political realism born from years of close interaction with the political class and reality of Bangladesh. It sees the election as just a standard process whereby one group of ‘governors’ gets replaced by another. Cynics in this camp hold that it is not just governors who change but predators, since that is what democracy in Bangladesh has come to embody in the last two decades. They thus argue that the 2008 vote is a political statement against excessive predation. While this argument has some resonance in Bangladesh and is the dominant view, since the leadership has hitherto shown itself to be a prisoner of party strategizing at the expense of national interest, this paper reads the 2008 election somewhat differently, as a watershed election pregnant with potential for a new polity.

 

What makes 2008 unique? There are several factors that in combination have produced this result. A trawl through the commentaries comes up with a long list of factors. Some suggest that the large number of first time voters (about 32%), had a decisive impact on the result. Others suggest that it was the higher turnout of women voters made possible by the absence of violence, since the caretaker government of Fakhruddin Ahmed ensured a strong presence of security forces that was influential.

Still others argue that a similar feeling of security was present among the minority community who also voted in larger numbers than they had in earlier elections where they felt intimated by religious extremist forces of the majority community. This too impacted the result. Some reports credit the voter awareness campaigns conducted by the Bangladesh Election Commission (BEC) and by NGOs such as EWG as having an important role in producing the result. In addition, the presence of a large number of domestic and foreign election observers who were monitoring the election also had an impact.

 

An interesting factor that some commentators mention was the appeal of the manifestos, especially that of the Awami League, whose slogan, ‘for change’ echoed the slogan of President Obama that had, in the US, fired the imagination of those disgusted by the old politics of George Bush. This was true especially for the young voter. There were similar echoes in Bangladesh. Another factor often listed in the range of possible factors, was the better choice of candidates by the AL; many of their candidates were new and had no history of corruption. Allied to this image of clean candidates was the strong campaign by many civil society groups against corruption which had become an important element in the public discourse. This discourse has, in fact, grown in significance with the revelations of sleaze and the subsequent prosecutions of those accused by the Anti-Corruption Commission.¹ 

To this extensive catalogue one could perhaps add the fact that the 2008 election was taking place after seven years – of which two years included the emergency phase when political rights were suspended. Hence, the elections can be seen as a release of a suppressed political aspiration and a desire for a return to politics and the energy of political competition in contrast to administration as a method of governance. To this long list one may add a cultural explanation. The fact that elections were held in December, a month which in the public mind is associated with the anniversary of the day of liberation in 1971, is not insignificant, especially for a young nation which is striving to develop the symbolic inventory necessary for nation building. December is a symbolic month.

 

In addition to the above factors that have influenced the electoral outcome, one must recognize the impact of three crucial institutional innovations that had been made to the electoral system. The first relates to changes in the electoral roll which has been cleaned up with the help of the UN system. Nearly 12.2 million ‘ghost’ voters were deleted (about 13% of the electoral roll)² and, for the first time, the photos of voters were printed on the electoral rolls, thereby not just eliminating impersonation but also producing a high level of accuracy in the voter list. The magnitude of the impact of this small innovation on the political system is still to be evaluated.

The second radical innovation was the issuing of photo-identity cards which are expected to function not just as voter identity cards but also as national cards providing the voter with the certification of identity and citizenship necessary to access a host of services from the state. For a poor country with a high level of illiteracy, this was a great incentive and the proof of its success was the high demand for the card. Citizens were willing to visit stations to be photographed and to be brought into the certification process by the state. People aspired to be given the visible evidence of their citizenship.

The third and most important innovation was the increased autonomy given to the Bangladesh Election Commission. Through the ordinances that were passed, a model code of conduct was enforced, political parties were required to register with the BEC, an affidavit listing the assets owned was required from prospective candidates, and the BEC was given its own secretariat. These institutional innovations, small but significant, were instrumental in producing large outcomes in determining the result of 2008. An independent BEC, more than most institutions, is expected to play a crucial role in the political transition. Often, in discussing democratic politics in countries of the global South, we tend to give insufficient weightage to the institution of the election management body. In contrast, we argue here that an effective EC is central to maintaining and sustaining democracy.

 

Let us now provide some statistics to what has so far been merely an analytical argument. To begin, we need to reflect on the turnout at the last national elections.

Table 1 shows not just a steady increase in voter turnout in the last twenty years from 55% to 87%, but also a big increase of 11.5% from 2001 to 2008. Was this due to changes in the electoral rolls, the cleaning up of ghost voters, the other factors mentioned above, or was it also a statement of the aspiration among a majority of voters for a properly functioning democracy?³ Since no other nation in South Asia has such high voter turnouts (nor do other democracies the world over), and since the poor were willing to forego their daily wage and go to great lengths in a largely rural country to cast their vote, the suggestion that there is a surging aspiration for democracy does not seem too far-fetched. Only because the electoral roll was accurate, and the conduct of the polls was free and fair, was this remarkable figure of 87% achieved.⁴

The picture gets richer when we look at the votes cast, division wise and party wise, in the four national elections in Table 2.

Although in 2001 and 2008 the competition was between two political formations led by the BNP and AL respectively, the electoral data shows not only an expansion of the electorate but also a consolidation in the two party coalition alternating system. The two main parties seem to have developed a large loyal voter base. While this is a commonsense, it is worth noting that the middle ground of politics is very substantial, with one formation being to the left of centre and the other to the right of centre. The loyal voter base for the BNP is about 33% and for the AL about 40%. This is good for democracy since the big presence that the parties have at the centre of politics will have a sobering effect on the extremes. It contains the potential to democratise the extremes.

 

If this centre space of an emergent party system can be further consolidated then the future of democracy in Bangladesh indeed looks very promising. It is also important to recognize that for the gains of a two-party coalition alternating system to persist both the major parties are necessary. It is critical that the AL not forget this message, since in its triumphalist moment it may attempt to diminish the BNP to the point of it being rendered ineffective. The 1975 experience of one party rule must not be forgotten, nor the fact that a two-party coalition alternating system is good for democracy. Fragmentation of one will produce a void which will be filled by extremist political formations. It will also deprive the polity of the pragmatic attitude of the middle space in which both parties are currently located and which is dependent on the institutions of a parliamentary democracy. Only then will challenges be addressed within the norms of parliamentary democracy, a process which extremist groups do not endorse.

 

To consolidate the political centre, the electoral system will have to develop an effective body of institutions, laws, ordinances, conventions and precedents. The political dynamics of this middle zone will have to be regulated by this electoral system such that the infirmities of the earlier period – of intimidation, violence, impersonation, rigging, partisanship by the BEC, and manipulation of the vote (as was alleged in earlier elections)⁵ can become a thing of the past. If this happens, the electoral process will acquire a high degree of political legitimacy and public confidence necessary for a consolidated democracy.

 

Large steps in this direction have already been made by the ordinances passed during the tenure of the caretaker government of Fakhruddin Ahmed and subsequently accepted by the government of Sheikh Hasina.⁶ Already between 2006 and 2008 the BEC has considerably gained in legitimacy, because of these changes, as the study by EWG conducted between 1-3 December 2008 revealed. To the question, ‘Do you feel that election officials are discharging their responsibilities impartially and fairly?’ 76% of respondents answered ‘yes’, 6% ‘no’, and 19% ‘don’t know’. In 2006, ‘just 43% of voters thought the Bangladesh Election Commission was generally neutral and unbiased’.⁷

Having made the point that the democratic character of the party system, and the electoral system, is getting consolidated by the interplay between institution and process, and agency and structure, let us now look at the question of the shift in the centre of gravity of politics itself. While we have mapped the features of the terrain around the centre, we now need to examine whether the centre itself remains where it previously was or whether it too has shifted and, if it has, whether it is a temporary or a tectonic shift. Let us make this case at two levels, first by interpreting the statistical data on the 2008 vote and, second, by looking at the political cultural aspects of the elections. This second level will help us go beyond the statistics and make sense of the cultural changes that have taken place and impacted the elections.

 

Three observations can be made from Table 3. The first is that the big difference in votes polled between the AL and BNP, the margin of victory of about 15%, can be explained in terms of three categories of voters: new voters, defectors and floaters. AL seems to have gained the majority of votes from all three categories. All three seem to be attracted by the vision for Bangladesh that the AL was presenting: of change, of youth, of secularism, of development. Although the defectors from the BNP camp may be few in number, they have perhaps shifted loyalty either because of the misgovernance of the BNP regime or because, as many interlocutors have suggested, the exposures of corruption by the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC). Having entered the lexicon of the public discourse in a big way, corruption matters more than it did earlier.

The floaters were also responding to the same kind of messages, on governance and misgovernance, as were the defectors. Whereas the defectors were making a stronger political statement, since they shifted loyalty and therefore rejected, at least for this election, the ideological worldview represented by the BNP in addition to the protest against misgovernance, the floaters were primarily making a statement about misgovernment. They constitute the core of the anti-incumbency vote and have been the basis for the evolving system of alternating parties. The positive impact of the two voter categories is that the message of punishing a government for non-performance will now be heard clearly and be acknowledged by all parties, especially in this new scenario of an effective and more independent BEC which will ensure that poll outcomes cannot be manipulated as in the past.

 

The new voters, about 32% of the electorate, in contrast, are articulating a new set of preferences and if one takes into account that Bangladesh is a nation with a large population of youth, then one could hypothesize that this new voter is aspiring for modernity. Coupled with the aspiration for modernity is the fear of walking the path in which Pakistan seems trapped. From the public discourse one gets a sense that Bangladesh’s construction of its ‘other’ oscillates between India and Pakistan, with positive and negative lessons being learned from each. The new voter is sending out a new message which can perhaps be captured by the slogan of a ‘digital Bangladesh’. Many suggest that the slogan worked.

 

The second observation that can be made from the statistical data in Tables 2 and 3 is that perhaps the ambition for Bangladesh’s future can be said to lie hidden in the vote trends of the Dhaka division. If Dhaka is regarded as a microcosm of the country, more so a microcosm of what the country will soon be, then the 17 point difference represents the changed perspective of not just the new voter but also the old voter and the different fractions of the old voter. This shift may be because Dhaka is the educational hub of the country, the centre of the garment industry, the magnet for the migrant population that sees freedom and opportunity in the urban environment. It could also be because Dhaka supports an active public sphere. All these factors have in combination produced a sizeable victory for the AL. And since Dhaka is the most populous division in the country, it has a weighted effect on the countrywide vote.

The third observation concerns the rejection of the Jamaat-i-Islami as a purveyor of an alternative political future. Not only has the number of its elected representatives declined from 17 to 2, but its vote share too has declined to below 5%. From the electoral data one can confidently say that the political current represented by the Jamaat-i-Islami seems to have been marginalized, both geographically (with a significant presence only in the Khulna division) and demographically. While it still has the numbers in absolute terms, the Jamaat has been unable to convert the inherent religiosity of the people into a political asset. Its version of the future, of political Islam, has been rejected by the voter. One interlocutor has pithily summed up this sentiment: ‘Bangladesh is a religious society but it is anti-fundamentalist.’ People have voted against the militancy that characterizes the politics of the Jamaat.⁸ 

 

From interpreting the data let us now shift the discussion to the second level and look at some of the political cultural aspects of the election. Although there will be some overlap in observations between the two levels of interpretation, the statistical data and cultural levels, with respect to the rejection of militancy, the value of the vote (therefore a high turnout), the strength of pragmatic politics of the centre, the acceptance of the authority and legitimacy of the BEC, the aspiration for modernity by the youth, and the presence of women in politics, at this second level lie four issues of substance.

 

The first issue concerns the campaign for a ‘war crimes’ tribunal that was made into an election issue by the AL. In its young history of nation building, Bangladesh has been unfortunate in having to experience two bloody partitions, first from an undivided India when partition was accompanied by widespread communal violence between Muslims and Hindus in the Bengal in 1947, and 24 years later from Pakistan, when genocide was committed on the Bengali people by the Pakistan Army and its collaborators.

In 2008, the AL boldly stated that the trauma of 1971 needs to be brought to light so that the task of building a new nation can begin after the war crimes are discussed and the ghosts exorcised from memory, punishment given, forgiveness offered, and reconciliation attempted. Further, even if difficult, the process has to be collectively experienced for national catharsis. That the AL combine made this an election issue is a sign of courage and maturity since it entails a deep churning of the body politic. The public domain seems to have endorsed the view that a tribunal is necessary and that forgetfulness and denial is not an option.

The second issue relates to the role of both the electronic and printed news media. In recent years, the media has grown in importance and no political party can afford to ignore it. While this has now become a truism, the AL seems to have harnessed the power of the media, both old and new, more successfully if we are to go by the blogs and campaign material produced.

The third issue worthy of attention is the impact of the expansion of civil society. In addition to what appears to be a process of secularisation of the public domain, especially because of CSO campaigns on public health, women’s empowerment, human rights, environmental concerns, reading of books, and so on, the robustness of civil society has also become a bulwark against fundamentalism because of the values that it espouses. This has certainly resulted in a shift in the centre of gravity of the polity towards the more progressive end of the ideological spectrum.

 

The fourth issue to be explored, perhaps hermeneutically, is what appears to be a subtle shift in the public attitude to the rule of law. Whereas some years ago there was widespread cynicism about the impartial application of the rule of law, since some members of the political class were above the law, the experience of prosecution by the ACC may have created a sense, however feeble, among the ordinary citizens that given the political will, as was the case during the caretaker government, it is possible to punish the big violators of the law. This is the weakest hypothesis of the four on offer, and would be rubbished by most residents of Bangladesh. Nevertheless, we have persisted in retaining it because we need to know if what we see is actually a false dawn or is, in fact, the first streaks of light of a new day. Will the current political leadership be able to transcend the habit of scoring political points against its opponents and build a partnership for a new era of politics? Will it be able to seize the day?

 

* The article draws largely from the work done by the author for UNDP in 2008-09 on the transformation taking place in Bangladesh.

Footnotes:

1. The disgust with ‘corruption’ is more tangible in the public discourse in Bangladesh than possibly in other South Asian countries perhaps because it is largely culturally homogeneous and hence the disgust cannot be deflected, as is usual in India, by appeals to cultural identities of caste and community, which then become more important as mobilization tools than opposition to corruption.

2. NDI study, ‘Second Survey on the Integrity of the Voter’s list’ by Owen Lippert, Najia Khogyani-Hashemee and Mohammed Yusuf.

3. ‘From previous monthly perception surveys implemented by the (Asia) Foundation and EWG, it has been observed that in the upcoming election, people have great expectations from their elected representatives regarding such broad issues as increasing food supplies and reducing prices of food and other essentials; taking effective anti-corruption measures; ensuring continued improvement in law and order situation; providing quality public services to the people (such as health, education, and general administrative services); introducing fundamental development and governance reforms; and revitalizing the economy through infrastructural improvements … adequate and timely supplies of agricultural inputs, and an improved business climate for rapid industrial and business growth in the private sector.’ EWG, ‘Twenty-First National Public Perception Study Report; Preliminary Report on Election Related Issues’, November 2008, p. 8.

4. ‘To this point in the process the Observer Group found that the election has been credible and met many of the benchmarks for democratic elections to which Bangladesh has committed itself. Particular mention must be given to the major effort involved in the successful registration of voters. The significantly improved voter list increased public and political confidence in the process and ensured that universal suffrage was largely provided for. The legal framework provides the basic conditions for genuine elections, such as the right of political parties and candidates to participate, provision of basic campaign freedoms, and improved conditions for equal suffrage by the recent delimitation of 133 of the 300 constituencies. The state of emergency did impact negatively on the environment in the build-up to the election, limiting basic rights and freedoms, including the ability of parties and individuals to associate freely and placing limitations on freedom of expression. During the campaign there were reports of some clashes between party activists, particularly in the build-up to election day, though thankfully these were of a limited and isolated nature. On the day of the election Commonwealth Observers … found people were free to express their will and cast a vote in secret. The tabulation and results process were transparent, particularly as candidate agents could receive a certified copy of the result at the polling centre and individual centre results were posted at the site. ‘Interim Statement’, Commonwealth Observer Group: Bangladesh Parliamentary Elections, 31 December 2008.

5. Odhikar, ‘Election Violence: Education and Resolution (EVER)’, Final Report 16 February 2009.

6. Refer to Amendments made to the RPO through the following ordinances: (i) Electoral Rolls Ordinance 2007, (ii) Election Commission Secretariat Ordinance 2008, (iii) RPO (amendment) Ordinance 2008, (iv) RPO (second amendment) Ordinance 2008, (v) RPO (third amendment) Ordinance 2008.

7. EWG, ‘Pre-Election Survey’, 1-3 December 2008, Question 5, p. 3.

8. Elora Shehabuddin, ‘Jamaat-i-Islami in Bangladesh: Women, Democracy and the Transformation of Islamist Politics’, Modern Asian Studies 42(2/3), 2008, pp. 577-603; Istiaq Hossain and Noore Alam Siddiquee, ‘Islam in Bangladesh Politics: The Role of Ghulam Azam of Jamaat-i-Islami’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 5(3), 2004, pp. 384-399.