A model election?

With the next parliamentary election less than a year away, what unfolded at the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) election last week carries a lot of significance.

The SCBA election has a long-held tradition. Our lawyers are usually directly involved in national politics; they have played pivotal roles in all past movements, including the anti-autocratic movement. Many national-level politicians have come from this pool of lawyers. In the SCBA election, pro-Awami League and pro-BNP lawyers compete. Usually, SCBA elections are widely accepted and deemed fair.

This year, a seven-member subcommittee led by senior lawyer Munsurul Hoque Chowdhury was formed to conduct the election. Among the members, there were an equal number of pro-AL and pro-BNP lawyers. Munsurul is known to be a pro-AL lawyer and has contested under the AL banner in some previous elections. However, his political alignment did not clash with his electoral duties – he was equally accepted by both sides.

However, as the election day drew close, distrust and agitation grew between the two sides. Munsurul had disagreements with the pro-AL lawyers about conducting the election, printing ballot papers, and counting votes. Allegedly, the pro-AL leaders openly called him biased and disrespected him. Munsurul wanted to use the electronic counting machine (ECM) to count the votes, and to take personal responsibility for printing the ballot papers. The pro-AL lawyers demanded that vote counting be manual, and that the current executive committee members should print the ballot papers. Amid such disagreement, Munsurul suddenly resigned just a day before the election. Crisis started unfolding then, and the election's overall mood shifted.

The electoral duty fell upon Md Moniruzzaman, a member of the convening committee. The pro-BNP lawyers complained that, as per rule, both sides needed to sit down and award the responsibility to a senior lawyer. Instead of that, pro-AL members took a unilateral decision ignoring the seniors and chose Moniruzzaman, a junior lawyer.

On the other hand, pro-AL lawyers claimed that the new convenor was chosen as per rules, alleging that the pro-BNP lawyers were complaining in order to bring the election under question.

The pro-BNP lawyers claimed that their AL counterparts had printed the ballot papers on their own. Allegedly, 1,000 extra ballot papers were printed, and the pro-AL lawyers had stamped the ballot papers the night before the election, during which the pro-BNP lawyers arrived, and chaos ensued. Pro-AL lawyers denied any foul play.

The next day, pro-AL lawyers prepared to start vote-casting from 10am. However, lawyers from the other side intervened and a scuffle broke out. At around 11:30am, police entered the fray and started mercilessly beating up the pro-BNP lawyers, who were forced to leave the election premises. Then, police started attacking the journalists who were there to cover the election.

Why were the journalists beaten up? They didn't stop the police as they were beating up the lawyers, nor did they impede the election in any way.

But they were there witnessing what was happening. They captured images and audio of lawyers who didn't commit any crimes being beaten up. The journalists were beaten and driven out so that they would not be able to observe the election.

Who is to be blamed? Who called in the police?

The chief justice told the pro-BNP lawyers that he did not call the police and didn't allow them to enter the premises, as per media reports. Senior lawyer ZI Khan Panna told The Daily Star that although there is no law in this regard, police cannot enter the Supreme Court premises without the chief justice's permission.

From the case that was filed with Shahbagh police station regarding this incident, we learnt that the pro-AL lawyer panel's chairman candidate Md Momtaz Uddin Fakir and secretary candidate Abdun Nur Dulal sought police cooperation. The top brass of police then discussed this issue with the law minister and the attorney general. It is also mentioned that each and every member of the election committee as well as the general lawyers sought help from police. The pro-BNP lawyers, however, said their three members did not seek police's help.

We can safely assume that Munsurul Hoque Chowdhury was disrespected and/or forced to resign. The night before the election, Munsurul's name on the ballot papers was replaced with the new convener's name, who signed on them. The pro-BNP lawyers claim that votes were also cast at that time. Whatever the truth may be, the pro-BNP lawyers' claim of foul play does have some merit.

It is also evident that pro-AL lawyers had called in the police; the chief justice played no part in it. And why did they start the polling only after driving out the journalists?

The allegations raised by pro-BNP lawyers can be verified. Whether the election was properly conducted or not can also be probed. However, the most critical and debate-worthy question is: what example did this event create? In order to initiate vote-casting, one competing side and the journalists had to be removed via brutal beating. Seeing this, one cannot help but wonder about what may happen in the upcoming general election. If the SCBA election is considered a demonstration of a "model election," what can we expect in the future?

Translated by Mohammed Ishtiaque Khan. 

Golam Mortoza is the editor of The Daily Star Bangla.