Subject: 
            Asiaweek:Back Where They Started 
Date: 
            Sat, 24 Feb 1996 10:46:55 +2609 
From: 
            Mahmood Hassan 
Organization: 
            Kanazawa University, Ishikawa, Japan 
Newsgroups: 
            soc.culture.bangladesh


Back Where They Started

Bangladesh's One-Sided Election Solved Nothing
By Susan Berfield and Arjuna Ranawana / Dhaka


WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A government holds an election and neither the
opposition nor many voters show up? Bangladeshis are puzzling over
the answer. The main opposition parties refused to participate in
the Feb. 15 parliamentary elections, and many of the country's
voters, intimidated by violence, stayed away too. Even before the
final result was announced, the outcome seemed foreordained. Of the
300 seats at stake, the ruling Bangladesh National Party (BNP) had
won 203 of 205 contests as of Feb. 21. In addition, it captured 48
seats, including the one held by Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia,
without opposition.

While admitting the turnout was poor, Begum Zia declared the results
a victory for her party, describing the election as "very fair and
free." Opposition leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed called for
new elections and said she will stage another civil disobedience
campaign beginning Feb. 24.
Independent monitors, for their part, urged the election
commissioner to ignore the results because of "widespread vote
rigging and stuffing."

The election was supposed to end the 23-month-long opposition
boycott of parliament, led by Sheikh Hasina's Awami League. Instead,
it seems to have aggravated the tension between the
ruling party and its opponents. Clashes between thuggish BNP and
Awami League supporters have flared in Dhaka since the polls. The
government has tightened already strict security at all its
offices ahead of the three days of strikes called by the opposition.
The problematic election outcome is "this country's worst political
crisis" in 25 years, says Khushi Kabeer, a women's rights activist.

In the run-up to the polling, violent clashes took the place of
campaign rallies, and contributed heavily to the low turnout.
Opposition activists attacked Begum Zia's meetings, intimidated
government officials preparing for the poll and threatened voters.
"If you go to vote, you will return dead," said one poster. Dozens
were killed, including the police commissioner of Chittagong, the
country's commercial hub. Hundreds more were injured and thousands
arrested.

Two days before the election, Sheikh Hasina called for a country-
wide shut-down. In Dhaka, Awami League activists threw home-made
bombs at those who ventured out in their cars or dared to open their
businesses. The Elections Commission had to call out the army in the
capital the day before polling; only then did the protests stop. The
military had been deployed in the countryside a month earlier.
Still, on election day, 13 people were killed in attacks on polling
booths outside of Dhaka.

Campaigning was so curtailed in the countryside that some villagers
didn't even know the elections were on. Many polling stations were
deserted throughout the day. Independent analysts said that
between 5% and 10% of the country's 56 million registered voters
went to the polls; a pro-BNP news agency claimed that the turnout
was about 25%. Even that optimistic estimate, though, doesn't come
close to the participation in the 1991 elections, when 55% of all
qualified voters cast ballots.

Some now worry that the military, which ruled the country for 15 of
its 25 years, may try to intervene. That doesn't seem likely. But
the prospect of continued political and economic chaos is real. The
government reports that the economy grew by only 4% in 1995; it had
hoped for a growth rate of 6%. Business leaders who have suffered
from the opposition strikes now fear a new round of shutdowns.

Begum Zia, who has ruled since 1991, risks her already dwindling
credibility by not finding a way out of the electoral impasse. At
her victory party, the prime minister repeated a promise to open
negotiations to "discuss the country's problems" with the opposition
after her new government was sworn in. She was tight-lipped,
however, on a previous offer to hold new elections.

The opposition also deserves a large share of the blame for creating
the crisis. Fakhruddin Ahmed, head of the foreign-funded Fair
Election Monitoring Alliance, said that the opposition's boycott had
"deprived citizens of a meaningful choice in selecting their
representatives." Sheikh Hasina has yet to indicate if she will sit
down at the bargaining table with Begum Zia. Theirs is a bitter,
personal rivalry. The opposition leader has instead asked President
Abdur Rahman Biswas to take power, dismiss Begum Zia and conduct a
new poll. "A fresh, credible election is the only way out," says
Fakhruddin. Fresh, credible politicians might help too.