Parliamentary Election in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has already been prepared for parliamentary election. Building Walls in 300 constituencies are already been decorated by the colorful writings of greetings to the people from the potential candidates of deferent political parties. In last fortnight, while people of the country were celebrating Eid-ul-Fiter and Durga Puja, potential parliamentary election candidates were in their respective constituencies and engaged in public relations, sharing the festivity that made the festivals more meaningful. 

Though the military backed interim government Head that is the Chief Advisor (CA) had mentioned the dateline of parliament election but Election Commission (EC) is yet to declare the schedule formally. It is expected that within 14^th of November 2008 EC is going to unfold the election schedule dating 18^th December. As of previous experience and practice 2^nd or 3^rd November is the proper time for declaring schedule, saying people-concerned.

EC, in present time, is running through a complex process of preparation and facing legal challenges. Few month ago EC was engaged in a process of re-demarking the constituencies. This initiative was challenged in the higher court and the legal expert mentioned that EC should overcome the legal procedure to declare schedule for upcoming parliament election. Court was in holiday up to 12^th October and yet EC does not get any decision from the court. This legal issue put EC in a difficulty.

Another minor problem lays with the date of dialog between interim government and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) which is fixed on 15^th October, the last date of registration for political parties with EC. For registration, all important political parties including Bangladesh Awami League (AL) collected forms and document from EC and ready to submit duly. AL, from the very beginning, was in a mood to restore democratic political government and system instead of extra democratic extra constitutional military backed long term interim government. But the party was always perching for a credible election and saying that if any major political party does absent or boycott the election; this would not be acceptable to the nation or international community. So government should develop an atmosphere of dialog which could lead the parties to join in the election process.

The 15^th October government-BNP dialog is the outcome of government-politician initiative. Political Observers said that though the dialog has been scheduled on the last date of political party’s registration with EC, it will bring many positive things for the process of democracy and of course EC will consider the date of registration. BNP and the allies of the party including the fundamentalist Jamate Islami Bangladesh (Jamat) said that if EC is hard about the registration dateline they will go for registration in time.

This decision of BNP and 4-party alliance cleared that all political parties are intending to join in the 18^th December parliament election the Observers said. It is also true that almost all important political parties including AL and BNP are demanding total withdrawal of the State of Emergency before election but government is yet unwilling to do so. Rather interim government said that to ensure law & order, maximizing the participation of voters in poll and make the election credible & acceptable to all withdrawal of emergency is simply impossible. This deference is not a big issue and will be over come duly, the observers added.

One thing is to be mentioned that concerned power houses are intending to hold parliament election in due time. Even there is a tendency that every one is trying to project that they are very much keen to hold an election and trying to make understand the people that if, in any case, election date defer or any unavoidable situation arises that the election could not be hold in time, they are not responsible for the incident, it goes to others. This type of extra sensitivity is also not a healthy approach, Political Analysts mentioned. They also said that to make sure the parliament election, government and politicians have set aside the issue of Upazila (sub district) poll, which is an essential for strengthening the local government system. Authorities and the politicians, the real representative, should think about the issue concurrently to make democracy sustainable, the Analysts added. #