In deciding to step down as interim prime minister and postpone the elections planned for later this month, Bangladesh’s President Iajuddin Ahmed had no alternative. His political wiggle room was already severely limited by the opposition Awami League’s decision to boycott the election and bring its supporters out on to the streets. The final nail was the decision by the UN and the EU to pull out their election observers. Once they had declared, as they did on Thursday, that conditions for a credible election did not exist, the elections were doomed. If the international community challenged their legitimacy Bangladeshis were hardly going to do less.
Even without the outside intervention, however, Ahmed was right to go for postponement. Whether or not the claims by the Awami League about fraudulent electoral lists are true, the fact is that a significant number of Bangladeshis chose to believe them. If enough people genuinely believe, rightly or wrongly, that an election is a fraud then it is a dead letter. For democracy to work, it is not just a matter of the electorate being able to go along and vote as they want without intimidation or fear, or candidates being able to have free and unrestricted access to the media and the public’s ear, people also have to accept the results afterward even though they may not like them.
What is tragic about Ahmed’s decisions, however, is that by giving into the orchestrated crisis, Bangladesh’s democracy and its political institutions have themselves been damaged. He had no alternative while the Awami League had. It could have used legitimate means to postpone the elections. It could have gone to the courts or called for international arbitration. Instead, Bangladeshis have been shown that demonstrations and street violence work, that political parties can manipulate them for their own ends. Any party, which brings supporters onto the streets when it could have used legitimate means in pursuit of its goals, has to have its democratic credentials questioned. It is not that the Awami League’s bitter rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party is any better. It is just as much to blame for the violence, which has left at least 40 people dead. What Bangladesh needs is its political institutions strengthened not weakened.
There has to be concern as to whether the Awami League and the BNP will respect the state of emergency. The former, having tasted blood, may try to press home the success it won in forcing the postponement and the interim government’s resignation. The latter will feel on the defensive. Both will feel constrained by the limitations of the state of emergency, which has curtailed freedoms of movement and speech, including the right to criticize the government. It is a knife-edge situation. If one decides to take matters into its own hands, the other will do the same.
Hopefully the emergency can be lifted within a matter of days. If it is not and tension mounts, it may be difficult for the elections to be held at all for the moment.
