An Election Commission that Does Not Want Elections

It’s end of semester crunch time right now so I’ll be off for the next two weeks bar dramatic events. Just wanted to draw attention to the same-old-same-old strategy of EC. Without mainstream BNP participation elections in Bangladesh cannot be credible (same goes for AL), but this EC seems to be bent on engineering an impasse (not hard to do with our crop of politicians). Politicians and people of Bangladesh beware, an impasse will not help you in any way. There is a dire need for unity among political parties. AL and BNP need to focus on the fact that the EC is not a good-faith entity. The EC has been making fairly transparent attempts to foment intra and interparty discord, even violence, so that democracy is discredited once again and the status quo can continue. The EC will only ratchet up these efforts in the coming months. It is imperative that petty differences are put aside in the interest of a transition to democratic government. The parties should fully prepare to engage in elections without Khaleda and Hasina. That will definitely put a damper on this government’s plans.

See New Age’s spot-on editorial pasted below:

EC seems intent on delivering an impasse

The Election Commission�s ill-advised decision to invite the splinter faction of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party for talks on electoral reforms has expectedly prompted a strong backlash from the mainstream of the party. On Wednesday, BNP secretary general, Khandaker Delwar Hossain, demanded the resignation of the chief election commissioner, ATM Shamsul Huda, and his fellow commissioners for acting �beyond their constitutional jurisdiction� and has said that the BNP will not participate in parliamentary elections conducted by this commission. �Free and fair elections will not be possible under this Election Commission. It must go�,� Delwar stated while speaking to journalists.
We have on several occasions in the past warned the Election Commission that its seeming complicity in the military-controlled interim government�s perceived political agenda was not only eroding its credibility among the people but would also make its primary responsibility of holding participatory and credible general elections impossible. Unfortunately, not only did our warnings fall on deaf ears, it now appears as though our worst fears have come true � just like the commission led by Justice MA Aziz that preceded it, the current Election Commission is fast making its position entirely untenable.
The re-constituted Election Commission under Shamsul Huda has done little right in the last fourteen months of its existence. While it was not responsible for defaulting on the commission�s constitutional responsibility of holding general elections within 90 days of the dissolution of parliament, the expectation was that it would work overtime to hold parliamentary elections as expeditiously as possible and facilitate the return of power to a democratically elected government. Instead, the Election Commission, in our view, has done everything in its powers to delay elections in order to give the current regime as much time as possible to carry on with its perceived attempts at political engineering.
Moreover, it has increasingly appeared as if the commission has been directly aiding the regime with its perceived political agenda, becoming directly involved in the controversies surrounding the break-up of the BNP into two distinct factions. Having first overtly favoured the splinter faction over the mainstream faction, the commission then unashamedly urged the different factions of the BNP to unite when the High Court put a spanner in its works, as if the break-up or unification of political parties is any business at all of an Election Commission. Now, having had its obstacles removed by the Appellate Division, the commission is once again overtly doing the current regime�s bidding by trying to legitimise the splinter faction on the one hand and isolate the mainstream on the other.
Khandaker Delwar�s contention that his party will not contest national elections under the current Election Commission could well be an early indication of the political climate moving in the direction of an impasse, much like it had when the Awami League had refused to contest polls under the stewardship of the MA Aziz-led commission. In fact, the need to deliver the nation from that stalemate is what supporters of the current unelected regime point to repeatedly to justify the apparent necessity of its irregular nature and undemocratic interventions. It seems more and more likely now that the self-serving attempts at political engineering by the government and its military masters coupled with the Election Commission�s impotent acquiescence are conspiring to serve up exactly what they were ostensibly supposed to rescue the nation from: an impasse.