Election in Bangladesh reduced to rubber-stamp exercise: Report

Dhaka, Sep 6 (IANS) The election is reduced to a rubber-stamp exercise validating a political outcome already engineered on the streets, a report said, analysing the political shift in Bangladesh amid the 11-party alliance’s Dhaka-Chattogram march.

“There was something distinctly programmatic about the 11-party alliance’s Dhaka-Chattogram march. The convoy was large, the crowds larger, and the political rhetoric larger still,” a report from Bangladesh’s ‘Daily Sun’ newspaper said.

“At Mahipal in Feni, Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer and Opposition Leader Shafiqur Rahman warned of hearing “the footsteps of fascism”. Elsewhere, LDP Chairman Colonel (retd) Oli Ahmad offered a far more precise projection: the current government, he claimed, would fall by December, urging the alliance to maintain discipline in anticipation of assuming power,” the report highlighted.

It called the remarks by Ahmad a ‘remarkably specific timeline’ to be forecasted by an opposition leader.

“Governments typically transition through electoral defeat, shifts in parliamentary majorities, or the exhaustion of constitutional mandates—they rarely come with expiration dates announced from political rally stages. Yet, the language emanating from the alliance increasingly mirrors a coalition preparing for an unconstitutional rupture rather than a standard democratic contest,” the report emphasised.

According to the report, implementation of a referendum verdict, accountability for the July killings, resolution of acute energy shortages, price stabilisation, improved law and order, and the insulation of the civil administration from political partisanship are the six core demands of the alliance.

It said that these are urgent public grievances that no administration can afford to dismiss, but it also reminded that legitimate grievances do not inherently validate extra-constitutional methods of redress.

The report noted that Shafiqur’s warnings demand careful parsing, particularly given the gravity of the rhetoric employed.

“Whether December brings the political shift predicted by the opposition or simply marks another unfulfilled projection, the broader institutional stakes extend far beyond any single alliance or electoral cycle. The central hazard is not that an opposition party wins an election, but that the election itself is reduced to a rubber-stamp exercise validating a political outcome already engineered on the streets,” emphasised the report by Daily Sun.

–IANS

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