Column by Mahfuz Anam: The Search Committee’s task is as moral as it is legal

(I thank the Search Committee for inviting me, and apologise for not attending due to Covid-related complications.)

At the very outset, the government said there was not enough time to make a law for the formation of an Election Commission (EC), which is mandated by the Constitution of Bangladesh since its adoption in 1972. Then suddenly, the government declared that it had enough time to make such a law. Though it is called a law for the "Appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners" (original name is in Bangla, abbreviated translation is ours), what it actually does is spell out the formation of a "Search Committee," which will select and recommend to the president who, in his turn, will form the EC in consultation with the prime minister (The president is bound by the constitution to do so). How and why the "Search Committee" idea came to the fore when the need was for a law to form the Election Commission itself has never been satisfactorily explained.

On the face of it, the Search Committee is trying to find the right team to form the EC. But the underlying significance of their task is that they are laying the foundations for a free and fair parliamentary election to be held in less than two years—by December 2023.

However hard the ruling party supporters may try to whitewash the events surrounding the last general election, serious doubts persist about its authenticity. Because of faulty elections, the prestige of the elected members of parliament (MPs) took a nose dive—and with it the prestige of the parliament itself. This has also made our democracy questionable—to us as well as outside—and clouded our otherwise stunning success in other fields.

Here, we may recall that under the Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmed-led Election Commission (February 2012 to February 2017), in the 2014 parliamentary election, 153 MPs out of 300 were elected unopposed. This meant that no election took place in more than half of the constituencies in Bangladesh, with the majority of voters not being able to cast their votes. Of equal significance is the fact that the uncontested seats formed the majority in the House and formed the new government—without getting a single vote. So, former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rakibuddin holds the dubious honour of presiding over perhaps the only election ever held in the world where the majority of voters could not cast their votes, and yet the election was certified as completely free and fair.

Over the years, the political parties' capacity to manipulate elections have grown. With the work of firms like Cambridge Analytica, in Donald Trump's election in 2016 (there must be many others who operate in the shadows and have not been exposed yet. We have no idea what Israel-produced surveillance software like Pegasus—which we are rumoured to have bought—can do), with their data crunching algorithms powerful enough to discern the deepest prejudices in the voters' subconscious and bring them into play in determining how a voter should cast his or her ballot, elections have become more and more about subtle to crude manipulation of the masses, and not the making of an electoral mandate that it once was.

This is further exacerbated by the fact that ruling parties in most countries enjoy far greater advantage in manipulating elections than the opposition. Given its control over state media and their cosy relationships with the "friendly media," the capacity of the parties in power to influence public opinion is a thousand times higher compared to their rivals. This they do in many ways: like inaugurating development projects or making extraordinary grants in electorally vulnerable areas before the elections or by instigating divisive ideologies and exploiting ethnic, religious, and racial fault lines to their advantage. With all major institutions of the state—bureaucracy, police, intelligence, local administration—mostly in their total control, and with an enormous source of funds, the ruling parties all over have reduced to a mockery what was meant to be the expression of "people's will."

Prof Ali Riaz, distinguished professor at Illinois State University in the US, in his highly readable column published in this daily on February 16, 2022, talks about hybrid political regimes—meaning political regimes that combine democratic and authoritarian traits—and how they conduct elections. He highlights that such regimes are of two distinct types: competitive electoral authoritarianism, and hegemonic electoral authoritarianism. The major differences between them, he says, is the way they conduct elections. In the former type, while the entire political process is highly repressive and the media are muzzled, the election does engender a type of "uncertainty" through some form—however rudimentary—of competition. But in the latter type, that "uncertainty" is removed. He quotes from an essay by Steven Levitsky and Lucan A Way titled "The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism," that in the hegemonic variety of hybrid regimes, "election manipulation is institutionalised in a manner that competition is rendered useless and removes the uncertainty. The removal of uncertainty is achieved through various measures, including constitutional changes and electoral changes, but it requires the election commission to become a tool that works in unison with other state apparatuses in favour of the incumbent."

In addition to the authoritarian nature and tendencies of the present ruling party, the status of our elections has been further affected by the main opposition party's utter failure to reorganise itself and regain any place of consequence in the hearts and minds of our voters. BNP's leadership crisis in the form of Khaleda Zia's illness and Vice-Chairman Tareque Rahman's incompetence have further reduced the prospect of any serious challenge for the incumbent.

It is against this backdrop of globally shrinking democratic space, the rising tendency of ruling parties to manipulate elections, and Bangladesh's own prospect of graduating to the status of a developing country by 2026 (Covid pushed it back by two years from 2024), that the Search Committee is selecting possible candidates for an Election Commission that will conduct the next election within 22 months.

The last factor is important to remember. Graduating to the developing country status will definitely entail higher governance standards and insistence by the global community for more and more democratic practices in the coming years.

It is our hope that the Search Committee sees the totality of their task, and does not deal with it as a technical task of fulfilling certain criteria and legal niceties. Being only correct in procedures and not in substance will amount to missing the forest for a few trees. Far greater than the legal, there is an enormous moral task facing the learned and experienced Search Committee. We hope they will not forget for a moment that their few weeks of work will either be a boon or a curse for our nation and democracy for the next five significant years.

Mahfuz Anam is the editor and publisher of The Daily Star.