Days ahead of polls, majority of voters still unaware of July Charter
In our latest survey, around 57% of the respondents say they know about the referendum, while approximately 32% report that they know about the July Charter
After a long time, a parliamentary election has created quite a bit of suspense in terms of results. There's a lot of speculation regarding what might play out on 12 February. There is also an added layer of uncertainty regarding the referendum.
With the endorsement of BNP chairperson Tarique Rahman, both BNP and Jamat — the major competing forces in the upcoming election — have signified their support for the July charter.
In addition, the interim government has been a vocal proponent of the charter since the very beginning. In this context, the charter should easily pass in the referendum. But the reality on the ground may end up being very different. Survey data shows that voters still do not have clarity about the referendum.
We are currently conducting the second round of Jonomot, a platform which aims to map public opinion in Bangladesh across political, social, and policy dimensions. One of the primary goals of the survey is to identify where Bangladeshi citizens fall along the economic (left–right) and social (libertarian–conservative) dimensions. We are also working to determine which policy positions are within the range of socially acceptable opinion on key issues such as religion in government, gender, and sexual violence.
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The survey uses Random Digit Dialing (RDD) to generate an unbiased, representative sample of Bangladeshi mobile phone users where each valid Bangladeshi mobile number has an equal probability of selection. We have used sampling weights to adjust for demographic biases (for example, gender, age distribution and population in each division) within our sample. Until now, we have surveyed 2,178 respondents.
In this survey, we asked the respondents regarding the referendum. Around 57% of the respondents know about it. When we dig deeper and ask if they know what the July charter is. Approximately 32% report that they know.
It can be inferred that those who have been actively keeping themselves apprised of the reform process think that the July charter is important. The caveat is that they represent a small portion of the voting population. This is where the interim government's reform agenda has fallen short.
This denotes the fact that the reform process has largely been conducted in a top-down approach where the interim government, political parties, and civil society representatives shaped the July charter without meaningful involvement from the public. Among those who know what the July charter is, an overwhelming majority of 85% believe that the charter is important.
Thus, it can be inferred that those who have been actively keeping themselves apprised of the reform process think that the July charter is important. The caveat is that they represent a small portion of the voting population. This is where the interim government's reform agenda has fallen short.
Moreover, the level of awareness regarding the July Charter and the referendum is significantly lower among women. Only 24% of the female voters know what the July Charter is and only 45% know about the referendum even though they constitute half of the voting bloc.
If we look at the educational qualification and rural-urban disaggregated responses for these three questions, the disparity of reach of the reform process becomes even more significant. As education level increases, a higher percentage of respondents' state that they know about the referendum at all levels, except the vocational education stream where there is a slight drop. In the case of knowing what the July charter is, the same trend stands where people's knowledge about the charter increases as their education level increases. For the sub-set who knows about the charter, the charter's importance remains mostly the same across education levels.
The reform process also leaves behind the disadvantaged population. This can be observed through regional and income-level disaggregation. Knowledge of both the referendum and the July Charter is substantially higher in urban areas, with urban respondents being approximately 17 percentage points more likely to know about the referendum and nearly 14 percentage points more likely to know what the July Charter is than rural respondents. We do not see any significant difference in terms of the importance of the charter disaggregated by the rural-urban divide.
Similarly, income disaggregated analysis shows that the poorest households had the least amount of knowledge about the July Charter and knew the least about the referendum.
The two poorest income groups (monthly income below Tk25,000) constituted 65% of the sample. However, less than 30% of them know what the July Charter is, compared to 63% of the richest households. It goes without saying that the lower and lower-middle class voters constitute the largest voting bloc in the upcoming referendum. Therefore, it is worrisome that such a large population is going to vote in a referendum without much knowledge about the July Charter.
All of this shows that the July revolution's rallying cry of eradicating inequality from our country has not reached the more disadvantaged portions of the population. This is where the uncertainty regarding the referendum process stems from.
One reason behind this lack of knowledge (or the perception thereof) is how involved the July Charter is. Any referendum usually focuses on a few questions (if not just one). The referendum on July Charter has as many as 84 reform proposals and proposes around 30 constitutional amendments. These concepts and proposals are alien to most of the voters in Bangladesh. And the outcome of such an ill-informed campaign can be quite onerous.
Firstly, voting on either side without knowledge of the reform proposals, is against the spirit of democracy.
Moreover, assuming we want the reform proposals to pass, people lacking basic knowledge of the referendum and the charter may not be inclined to vote in favor of the referendum or may exhibit erratic voting patterns. This may result in the referendum failing to pass. If that happens, the future of the reform process will be in question.
In that regard, it was more important for the interim government to inform the public of the July Charter instead of solely focusing on campaigning for a 'Yes' vote. The government should have ensured that citizens from all corners of the country had at least a basic idea regarding the reform process and the referendum. As people who have knowledge about the charter mostly think the charter is important, the odds of the referendum passing would have increased if more people knew what the charter was.
In an interview, Dr Asif Shahan, professor of Development Studies at the University of Dhaka, opined that the interim government should have partnered with the NGOs to disseminate the details of the referendum across the country. Given their expertise, it would have been an effective way to reach people. Of course, that has not happened.
However, reform is not a static endeavor. The future elected government has important takeaways from this whole process. To implement real long-lasting change, the government must closely interact with the citizens and make them active agents of change, not just passive observers.
Tanjim Ul Islam, PhD Student, Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, The Ohio State University, e-mail: tanjim2909@gmail.com
Sheikh Rafi Ahmed, PhD Student, Department of Economics, National University of Singapore, e-mail: asheikhrafi@gmail.com
Redoun Satter, Research Assistant, ARCED Foundation, e-mail: redounsatter1004@gmail.com
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
