The fiery urgency of the parliamentary election

Let us indulge in a thought experiment and jump forward 50 years.

In the year 2075, a student in a Bangladeshi school is preparing for a subject she has been neglecting the whole year. At the very last moment, she sits down to study and sees the topic is "Dictatorship and Sheikh Hasina: 2009-2024". Another boring topic from the past that is of no interest to anyone, she thinks. She quickly pulls out her personal AI assistant and types in: "Who was Sheikh Hasina, and what did she do 2009-2024?"

But here, we depart from the future and come back to the present. Because, unlike this indolent student, we already know what Hasina did. If we compress the answer in a single sentence for the benefit of this student, it would be something like: "Hasina made free and fair elections impossible in Bangladesh and used the resultant lack of accountability to kill and torture thousands, oppress millions, launder billions of dollars, and destroy the financial system." (On a tangent, it is one of the lasting Foucauldian legacies of Hasina that we had to get in the habit of saying "free and fair" before elections, something that is generally assumed as given in much of the world).

Like all self-evident truths, this axiom bears repeating. Hasina was only able to create a system of accomplices, killers, torturers, and looters because she removed the fear of accountability that haunts every democratic government.

The fear of being accountable to the people of Bangladesh, of having to look them in the eyes and account for all their wrongdoings, of being in the receiving end of the same measures that were being imparted: Hasina promised a magical reprieve from all of these and enough people believed her, for a while. In the vacuum of democracy created by a lack of elections, the worst impulses and behaviour flourished.

It was therefore something of a shock to read Nahid Islam, the lionheart of the July Uprising and Convenor of the National Citizen Party (NCP), had said that elections may not be possible this year due to the law and order situation and its lack of improvement.

Somewhere in a posh Delhi villa, Hasina must be chuckling to herself. Instead of creating all the elaborate stratagem and theatrics to hold rigged elections while trying to maintain the facade of democracy, she could have just delayed elections indefinitely by blaming it on the law and order situation.

If anything, she is probably thinking, she did not plan big enough. Hasina mired the country in crossfires and enforced disappearances; she could have also then blamed the same to delay the elections.  No need to get dummy candidates or engage in nocturnal voting - just keep delaying the elections.

Sarjis Alam, another NCP leader, said something similar previously when he said that no one should speak of elections until Hasina was on the gallows, facing execution. It is as if the founders of Bangladesh had decided in 1972 that they would not go ahead with forming the institutions of the new state until Yahya Khan had been hanged.

Hasina kept us in an autocratic purgatory during her regime. Why will we give her the satisfaction of remaining in the same limbo even after she has fled? It is worth repeating, over and over if necessary, that one cannot claim to be anti-Hasina while displaying the same defining characteristics as our former prime minister.

All of those who fought together to oust Hasina have a collective obligation to be better and do better than what Hasina managed, if they are to stay true to the spirit of last year's uprising.

We waded through a tsunami of blood and tears last July to rid ourselves of a government that would not hold elections in fear of the results. We want to believe the current Interim Government is better and knows better. Starting from Chief Advisor Yunus down to other responsible stakeholders of the state, many individuals have spoken about December being the likely date of the next parliamentary election.

It should be the priority of every Bangladeshi who believes in democracy to assist in the hastening of the festival of election where the people of Bangladesh will again re-exert their constitutional sovereignty over their country, and Bangladesh will again proudly take its place amongst the democracies of this world.

It is also incumbent upon us to flatly reject the false binary that posits we can have either reforms or elections. Bangladesh can and must have both. As is the broad consensus, all pro-July parties will hopefully agree on a common set of reforms, perhaps to be partially implemented before and partially after the elections.

An elected parliament, on the other hand, can tackle reforms with far more alacrity and enthusiasm than the current Interim Government, whose dependence on consensus, amidst stakeholders with widely divergent priorities, has too often left it mired in inaction and indecisiveness.

The medicine for bad politics is better politics. The perfect rejoinder to the last 15 years of autocracy is to return to the practice of democracy, with a durable system that can hold free and fair elections after every parliamentary term, and the transition of power can happen with handshakes and democratic continuity. That is a dream worth pursuing. That is a Bangladesh we could proudly pass on to our future generations.

Ehteshamul Haque is an attorney with extensive experience in corporate America. He has served as legal counsel for leading entities such as HP and Verizon. A graduate of Georgetown University's law school, he began his career at the US Department of Justice.

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.