Governance in Partisan Local Government Election in Bangladesh : Civil Society Perspectives
Rahman, Md Mashiur (2022)
2022
Master's Programme in Leadership for Change
Johtamisen ja talouden tiedekunta - Faculty of Management and Business
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2022-11-29
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202211168433
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202211168433
Tiivistelmä
Bangladesh has experienced a long history of local government (LG) elections since its inception. In particular, regular elections have been held at Union Parishad (UP) level, while elections and activities of other LG bodies had been irregular. Therefore, all LG elections were held on a non-partisan basis until 2015, where any political or independent candidate could contest in the election, but they were not required to accept the party's nomination. As a result, all potential candidates in the local area could participate in non-partisan local elections, creating a competitive festive atmosphere. But after adopting the partisan LG polling clause in 2015 by the ruling government, the party could offer nominations to anyone of its party activists. In this partisan election, the candidates nominated by political parties had to use the party symbol and the image of the main party leader. As Bangladesh faced its new experience of partisan LG elections for the first time in 2016, there was a huge controversy and debate among political parties, civil society, media personalities, election observers, etc. In this regard, partisan LG elections in Bangladesh are an issue that has attracted much attention and heated discussions in today's political and academic circles. Recently, partisan UP election for the second time has been held across the country. There have been many media reports and discussions on this issue. Due to the politicization of different institutions in Bangladesh including the media, all reports and news related to partisan LG elections were not always valid and verified as it was happening on the spot. Sometimes news was fabricated and controlled by political parties, which is one of the constraints to getting the truth. Furthermore, there are few studies on this issue, mostly through literature reviews. With this phenomenon in mind, this study examined civil society perceptions towards the governance process of administering partisan UP polls in rural Bangladesh. Following this, this study selected a UP in a rural area and a municipality in another semi-urban area as study area. As the general citizen does not have enough consciousness and knowledge on the election process and they are politically biased in most of the cases, civil society those who are recognized as neutral and third eye of the society is considered as sample respondent in this study. In this regard, a total of 42 sample respondents were drawn from the two regions through a snowball sampling technique. Data were collected through a semi-structured qualitative questionnaire combining some open-ended and closed-ended questions. Then the data were qualitatively analyzed by a data analysis spiral.
The results of the study mainly reflected the dominant role of ruling party in election campaign and vote casting process, unequal opportunity for the opposition party or independent candidates in submitting the nomination, uneven field for all the candidates in election campaigning, nomination business by the political party, interference of ruling party or local MP in selecting polling and presiding officer, rigging the vote by the ruling party activists, record deaths and injuries, capturing the polling centre by the ruling party activists with the assistance of law enforcing agencies (LEA), removing the agents of opposition candidates from the polling centre by the ruling party activists, inactive role of polling and presiding officers during voting manipulation, anomalies in voting count, ignoring the election complaints of opposition candidates by the election commission (EC), lack of enough capacity of EC, etc. that were the main concern for rethinking the application of partisan LG polls in future.
However, most of the findings were the same in both areas with the exception of candidate participation rates, voter turnout, voter awareness and the role of media. In semi-urban area, the presence and role of the media was very accessible and found it as a watchdog compared to rural area, which made a difference in rate of candidate participation in LG election. In addition, voters in semi-urban area were more educated and politically aware, which has accelerated more voter turnout in semi-urban area than rural area. Therefore, some factors were identified through this study that contributed to weak participation and less transparency in partisan LG elections. Among these factors, unequal election field for all the candidates in the campaigning, ruling party candidates gained additional favor from EC and local administrations, opposition candidates’ agents were forced to be absent from polling centers, ruling party activists used muscle power to occupy polling centers, fearful role of election officials, less focused on local issues, fear of potential candidates running for elections, and record violence were key constraints for getting weak participatory and less transparent partisan LG election compare to previous non-partisan LG election. In this regard, given the negative impact of mass violence and the long-term consequences of this rigged partisan LG election, the government could reconsider repealing the partisan LG polls clause to re-establish good governance practices in the electoral process.
The results of the study mainly reflected the dominant role of ruling party in election campaign and vote casting process, unequal opportunity for the opposition party or independent candidates in submitting the nomination, uneven field for all the candidates in election campaigning, nomination business by the political party, interference of ruling party or local MP in selecting polling and presiding officer, rigging the vote by the ruling party activists, record deaths and injuries, capturing the polling centre by the ruling party activists with the assistance of law enforcing agencies (LEA), removing the agents of opposition candidates from the polling centre by the ruling party activists, inactive role of polling and presiding officers during voting manipulation, anomalies in voting count, ignoring the election complaints of opposition candidates by the election commission (EC), lack of enough capacity of EC, etc. that were the main concern for rethinking the application of partisan LG polls in future.
However, most of the findings were the same in both areas with the exception of candidate participation rates, voter turnout, voter awareness and the role of media. In semi-urban area, the presence and role of the media was very accessible and found it as a watchdog compared to rural area, which made a difference in rate of candidate participation in LG election. In addition, voters in semi-urban area were more educated and politically aware, which has accelerated more voter turnout in semi-urban area than rural area. Therefore, some factors were identified through this study that contributed to weak participation and less transparency in partisan LG elections. Among these factors, unequal election field for all the candidates in the campaigning, ruling party candidates gained additional favor from EC and local administrations, opposition candidates’ agents were forced to be absent from polling centers, ruling party activists used muscle power to occupy polling centers, fearful role of election officials, less focused on local issues, fear of potential candidates running for elections, and record violence were key constraints for getting weak participatory and less transparent partisan LG election compare to previous non-partisan LG election. In this regard, given the negative impact of mass violence and the long-term consequences of this rigged partisan LG election, the government could reconsider repealing the partisan LG polls clause to re-establish good governance practices in the electoral process.