Diplomatic Correspondent :
Sixteen international organisations on Saturday expressed their concern over the “restrictive electoral environment” surrounding the 11th general election in Bangladesh slated for today (Sunday).
They said this in a joint statement issued from Bangkok Headquarters of Asian Network for Free Elections.
Ever since the election was announced, they said, the Bangladesh government had started crackdown on civil society, the opposition, and the media, undermining any semblance of a democratic process. This placed a severe strain on the waning health of democratic engagement in Bangladesh, and compromises the integrity of the election, the statement read.
According to media reports as of December 26, since the allotment of electoral symbols (during the campaign period) on December 10, there have been at least 30 reported attacks on opposition motorcades, 207 incidents of violence in 159 constituencies, at least 43 candidates of the Jatiya Oikyafront were attacked and 13 candidates seriously injured, 17 opposition candidates were arrested, while the High Court Division of the Supreme Court disqualified BNP candidates of 23 constituencies.
The statement also read that five persons were killed and 2682 injured in election related violence during this reporting period. Furthermore, reports had surfaced of opposition members being beaten, their party houses being razed to the ground, female candidates being attacked, and opposition campaign rallies being accosted. These attacks were meant to instill fear in the minds of Bangladeshi voters, and thus undermining the prospects of a level electoral playing field.
According to the opposition, as many as 21,000 of their members and activists have been arrested by the Bangladeshi Police since the announcement of the election in early November 2018. Several human rights groups have found a dramatic increase in fictitious cases filed against opponents of the ruling party since the beginning of 2018. Among those arrested are prominent leaders of the opposition alliance, Barrister Mainul Hosein for criminal defamation, and Zaffrullah Chowdhury for cases such as treason, extortion, and stealing fish. The sheer number of cases filed against the political opposition indicates an unlevelled playing field, and the ruling party’s control over judicial and security institutions, thus placing the entire country in a controlled environment, which goes against the principles of democratic elections.
‘The credibility of an election is not defined solely on competitiveness and orderliness of the process, but most important is the quality of the electoral environment. As the election drew near, independent civil society organisations and media have experienced restrictions on their operations, ‘ the statement also read.
‘It was reported that there were only 34,838 observers who expressed interest to monitor the polls, as of December 19. A BEC official relayed that, of this number, around 26,000 observers only will be granted accreditations,’ it added.
‘With the climate of violence perpetrated by the security forces, the weaponisation of law and judicial agencies against the opposition, the hostility against civil society, and intimidation of the media, the situation effectively places Bangladesh in a controlled environment that disregards the free will of the people, and is not in line with the principles of democratic elections,’ the statement also read.
‘As a result of the prevailing conditions in the country, we express our doubts regarding the integrity and credibility of the election, which cannot be considered a free and fair process under any reasonable yardstick,’ it added.
The endorsing organisations are Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC); Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL); Global Network of Domestic Election Monitors (GNDEM); International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH); Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), Sri Lanka; Free and Fair Elections Network (FAFEN), Pakistan; Komite Independen Pemantau Pemilu (KIPP), Indonesia; Malawi Electoral Support Network (MESN), Malawi; MARUAH, Singapore; National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), the Philippines; People’s Alliance for Credible Elections (PACE), Myanmar; People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), Sri Lanka; Perkumpulan untuk Pemilu dan Demokrasi (PERLUDEM), Indonesia; Transparency Maldives (TI-M), the Maldives; Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), Zimbabwe; and Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (COMFREL), Cambodia.
