The fallout from upazila elections

The Awami League is behaving like a party that has returned to power with the whole nation standing behind it. If we are to believe in what their leaders are saying, then we should accept that in our lifetime and in those of our children, there would be no other party in power other than the Awami League (AL). The Prime Minister's son has articulated this in no uncertain terms in his recent speech in Rangpur.
The AL is, of course, way out of line with reality. The mindset that it will remain in power without any end in sight is not borne out by any of the present realities in the politics of the country. For one, no government in history has lasted for any length of time with support of so few of its people. Other realities are all self-defeating for the AL. This mindset contradicts the essence of democracy as well as the spirit of 1971, two foundations upon which the Awami League makes its claims to glory. In fact, every time the AL leaders claim that they would remain in power till 2019 based upon January 05 elections and by inference, much beyond that, they destroy bit by bit the very foundations of the party.
The upazila elections have further underlined the falling support of the ruling party among the electorate. Although in the third round, the AL was able to edge forward, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is ahead in number of winning chairman candidates it supported. If the BNP and the Jamaat, allies in national politics, had fought the upazila elections united - that they did not, the margin would have been wider. Further, there has been widespread interference by the ruling party in favour of its candidates that the administration assisted and the EC overlooked. The BNP claimed that without such interference it would have swept the elections that many believe to be true.
The upazila elections thus have reflected quite a different reality from the one upon which the ruling party is harping these days. The reality is a decline in its acceptance at the grassroots. One reality that the upazila elections underlined unequivocally is the total lack of acceptance of the Jatiya Party at the grassroots. So far, the candidates the party backed won only two of the nearly 300 posts of Chairman in the contest so far. In comparison, the performance of the Jamaat is another evidence that reality in present politics of the country is not exactly what the ruling party is trying to convince the people.
In fact, the performance of the Jatiya Party in the upazila elections so far has embarrassed the ruling party thoroughly. It has reminded the nation the absurd ways in which the ruling party thrust the role of official opposition in parliament to the Jatiya Party (JP). HM Ershad's flip-flops on whether or not to participate in the January 05 elections; his "internment" in the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) until the elections were over and held the way the ruling party wanted destroyed not just HM Ershad's highly questionable credibility, it also hurt the standing of the party that some had thought had the potential to become the third strongest political party with enough influence in parliament to decide which of the two mainstream parties would form the government.
The subsequent events in politics concerning the JP was a script out of a surreal drama in which HM Ershad became the "Envoy" of the government, the JP, the "official" opposition, Ershad's wife, the Leader of the Opposition and three of the party MPs, ministers of the government. As many as 240 members of the party who had withdrawn from elections on HM Ershad's directive were left to suck their thumbs. If anyone were told that such a scenario was possible before the January 05 elections, he/she would have been considered mentally deranged! Nevertheless, the ruling party went ahead claiming the JP would be able to become the opposition and the country would continue to be a parliamentary democracy modelled after the Westminster system!
The upazila elections has established that in politics, those who roll the dice do no have the ability to control the subsequent events the way they want in the first instance. Politics follows its own dynamics. Thus the absurd way in which the ruling party manipulated politics of the country leading to the January 05 elections and development thereafter and the way   the JP responded went out of their control. The voters at the grassroots with their votes showed that they held the power to determine the outcome of the dice that the Awami League and the Jatiya Party rolled in the country's politics in developments leading to the January 05 elections and thereafter.
The voters have unequivocally established that they do not believe that the JP is worthy of playing any role in national politics. The voters have also destroyed the ruling party's attempt to convince the people that the JP is credible enough to become the opposition in parliament as the third largest political party in the country.  Instead, they pushed the Jamaat to replace the Jatiya Party in the third place nationally very convincingly. The way the voters rejected the JP for the its role in national politics was evident from the drubbing the party received in Rangpur that was considered to be the stronghold of the party in national as well as local politics.
The JP's performance has thus destroyed the ruling party's attempts to convince the people that the BNP's boycott has not hindered the country from having a parliamentary democratic government. The JP in its current predicament cannot claim such a role unless one goes into a denial. The upazila elections however have extracted a heavy toll from the JP in the context of its future in politics where many feel that the party is on road to extinction. The flip-flops of HM Ershad  leading to the January 05 elections destroyed the little credibility he had. The conflict in the party between the small group that went for elections with its ringleaders ashamedly seeking ministerial posts and the large group that listened to HM Ershad and stayed away from the polls is already taking its toll. Kazi Zafar Ahmed has taken a sizeable chunk of the party with him and joined the BNP-led alliance.
Former President HM Ershad is but a ghost of his former self. In limited media appearances so far, he has appeared to be in a trance, no doubt, fearful about the outcome of the murder case of General Manzur now pending in the court. Raushan Ershad, as Leader of the Opposition, has already shown that she has really nothing in her to play the role given to her by the ruling party. Meanwhile, JP members are lining to join the BNP. Thus, the upazila elections have started the process of disintegration of the once powerful Jatiya Party.
The writer is a retired career Ambassador.
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