Against 'the people', rejecting Abraham Lincoln
The message coming from the horse's mouth these days is not common in democracies. True democrats cannot be proud of statements like ‘We don’t believe in too much of democracy”, “They (opposition) will not be allowed to take to the streets” or “We’ve to snatch away election victory”.
Such expressions, however, suffice the actions that victimise the opposition forces and dissenting voices. Secret killings and enforced disappearances are shown as sticks to all others when corruption to reap all state benefits is made a matter of right.
And where windows of democratic politics are shut one after another, the ones who are ultimately deprived of rights, justice, and opportunities are the people. They are being lectured about “development” - the lecturers' fortune-making indeed - but without safe existence of each civilian.
So, Obaidul Quader, the ruling Awami League’s (AL’s) general secretary, has aptly said his party's victory in the next elections is “merely a formality”. While claiming that the ‘people are so glad with the Awami League’s performance’, he might have meant the AL men by 'people'. Maybe, their insinuation is: The voters don’t need to take the pains involved in the process of voting for their rivals.
Still the question remains how he, who is not a soothsayer either, knows in advance the results of the elections, even the schedule for which is yet to be announced!
Yes, the Quaders have at least one model of horoscope for so doing - the 2014 ballot, with which they and their mentors and collaborators had played unholy tricks before and afterwards.
Recall how the caretaker government system was abolished in 2011 and parliament not dissolved during the 2014 polls. After making sure 153 Members of Parliament (MPs) elected without a single vote, the elections hardly saw 5 per cent turnout on voting day (5 January) while the election commission later recorded it at 40 per cent.
Then came the AL leaders’ and their sycophants’ development versus democracy debate - only to justify their actions with questionable mandate. It was followed by massive rigging in local government elections.
The AL leadership, say Quader’s predecessor Syed Ashraful Islam, openly boasted of foreign blessing for their government, following India’s ex-foreign secretary Sujatha Singh’s avowed support to the one-sided election.
The Bangladesh people are to experiment if a government which relies on foreign backing to make up for deficiency in public support can give priority to national interests and a government which has distanced itself from the electorates can bargain at all with foreign powers.
Mr. Quader and his colleagues have created an atmosphere where they do not have to face many questions about how his party’s candidates will win the hearts of the Bangladesh people after making constant attempts to stop them from exercising rights, whatsoever.
Had there been democratic accountability, Quader should have answered a blunt question, before being so 'sanguine' about polls victory: Has the AL since 2013 won any election (except that of Narayanganj City Corporation) without foul play or where there was relatively a fair game?
The reason of confidence in Quader and all other beneficiaries of the regime may also be his party’s cultural record. In fact, the AL itself was lost in one-party BKSAL system on 25 January 1975. Quader might have exposed their obsession to not have any alternatives that can challenge the rulers in electoral contest.
His party has shown penchant for elements like Hasanul Haq Inu’s Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal which wanted to overthrow the AL regime through an armed struggle in the 1970s.
Military dictator HM Ershad has proved to be a sweet choice for the AL. In 1986, the AL's joining of parliamentary elections offered legitimacy to his martial law regime after it had expressed satisfaction at Ershad's takeover in 1982. The AL found Ershad's Jatiya Party (JaPa) by the AL’s side during the movement against Khaleda Zia’s BNP regime for caretaker government in 1995-1996 and inducted one of its MPs into the 1996 cabinet.
Having Ershad as the prime minister’s special emissary and JaPa as partner in the AL’s coalition, the government has given JaPa leaders permission to celebrate 36 years of usurpation through a meeting at Suhrawardy Udyan. Isn’t it because Ershad overthrew the elected government of Abdus Sattar belonging to the BNP on 24 March 1982?
Quader’s government uses the law enforcement to deny the BNP the right to hold a meeting, apparently to give a message on how the opposition party would be treated during the elections.
We see a few landmark steps that define AL’s politics since 1975 - introduction of BKSAL, tacit support for Ershad’s coup etat, denial of its defeat in the country's first free and fair elections in 1991 and again in 2001, calling the 11 January 2007 takeover an outcome of the AL's movement, scrapping of caretaker system and holding a stage-managed election in 2014 and finally repressive measures to thwart any possibility of the opposition victory in the coming general elections.
Abraham Lincoln, the household name for terming democracy as the government “of the people, by the people, for the people”, would have been fooled by what is being presented as democratic politics today!
Quader’s party talks all about the people when all its actions say the opposite what Abraham Lincoln preached. It’s a new learning for a generation and of course a turning point in the history of democracy that will be written decades later.
* Khawaza Main Uddin is a journalist and he can be contacted at [email protected]