carttonLET us get into first things first. The elections to the four city corporations in mid-June were without question free and fair. In similar fashion, the triumph of the BNP-backed candidate at the Gazipur city corporation election was a sign of how fairly and properly elections can be conducted under a political government. Considered from the perspective of the nature of the five elections, one can reasonably argue that it is possible in this country for the right of franchise to be exercised freely with a political, albeit interim, administration in charge.
The Awami League-led government, therefore, deserves credit over the transparent manner in which the elections were held. That the Election Commission was able to preside over a series of good elections simply rebuts the argument of the BNP-led opposition that a political government cannot be trusted to hold free and fair elections. When the chairperson of the BNP argues that her party’s triumphant candidates would have obtained more votes than they actually did and that the Awami League’s nominees would have had their security deposits forfeited, she misses the point. And the point is one, just one: these were good elections, the veracity of which claim has been noted by citizens across the board. A good politician never quibbles over her nominees’ triumph.
And now let us move to other things. The reality following the five corporation elections is that in all these five cities, it is the good politicians who have lost. Despite their record of good performance or good character, they failed to prevent the deluge that was ultimately upon them. But, again, it was not these five men who lost. It was the ruling party that was given a sound knuckle rap at the elections. For all their successes or the positive armour they wore as shields, these five AL-backed men lost because a shrewd opposition chose to focus on issues that have exercised the public mind at the national level.
And those issues were what the media have repeatedly drawn attention to and which the government repeatedly brushed aside as matters of little consequence. The Padma Bridge funding was a scandal the electorate was not willing to forget; that a minister needed to be eased out of the government was a reality the prime minister did not accept; that another tainted minister ought not to be kept on as minister without portfolio was a truth not welcome; that the Grameen Bank issue should not have been blown out of proportion was a fact not realised in the corridors of power; that the share market and Hall-Mark issues would haunt the powers that be was treated with cavalier indifference.
The decline of the Awami League is a lengthening of the shadows of despair for secular, liberal voices in Bangladesh. The responsibility for this growing depression lies, first, with the Awami League itself and then with an opposition that clearly threw every scruple aside in its bid to capture electoral territory. A centralised leadership, with power concentrated in the hands of the party leader, stymied all efforts by the Awami League to bring about the change it promised before the last general election. New leadership did not grow. Veterans in the party were carefully kept out of policy-making. In the party and in the government, the atmosphere was one of a school where the headmistress is all and the pupils are there to obey. Every decision was basically the party leader’s decision. In consequence, every blunder was the party leader’s. The party is paying for those blunders.
The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, having lost the election in December 2008 for all the right reasons, tarried in the woods, disconsolate and angry — until the ruling party decided, in foresight that was as poor as it was suicidal, that the caretaker government system could be dispensed with. The Awami League ignored half of the judiciary’s ruling on the issue, opting for the half it liked. It felt little need to consult the opposition. Suddenly the BNP had an issue. Desperate to get back to power, it kept up its boycott of parliament, said nothing about the war crimes trials and began demanding, not a change of government but the fall of the government. Its hartals hurt the country. It did not care. Education suffered. It looked the other way. Its activists, along with those of its rightwing allies, caused mayhem on the streets. It was not worried at all. With the clerics, it went about identifying ‘atheists’ to be punished by the ‘faithful.’ That the ploy was lowly politics did not matter.
Only a miracle can now lead the Awami League back to power next year. Or a purposeful change in style and substance and policy will. Hubris has done enough damage; bad performance in government has had a telling effect on public sensibilities. A defeat for the Awami League at the next election will mean more than a dimming of the lights of liberalism. It will be a leap into the dark. It will be the death of values and every rainbow dream this nation has shaped and nurtured over the decades. When the Awami League loses, it is an entire nation which loses.
And what happens if the BNP, riding on the wings of its rabid rightwing allies, storms back to power? One would like to believe that there will be no terror of the kind unleashed within hours of the election of October 2001. One would like to think that the government it forms will not be a kleptocracy once again, that it will pursue politics rather than vendetta. But none of that is likely to come to pass, for the BNP has the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Hefajat-e-Islam with it. The Jamaat remains as ferocious as it was in 1971. The Hefajat is on standby to pull every value down, to pull the country into a fathomless darkness of medieval proportions.
The carelessness of the Awami League has placed the future of all citizens at risk. The desperation of the BNP and its allies does not promise a dawn we envisioned for ourselves five years ago.
These are times of questionable intent. Our twilight passes speedily from gray to suffocating night.

The writer is Executive Editor, The Daily Star.