Bangladesh Elections: Fraud and Boycott
Featured image: clashes in Chittagong during the elections from yesterday. Source: Social media
On Sunday 7th of January the general elections were held in Bangladesh. 300 deputies of 350 were elected, and the main party of the “opposition”, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) boycotted the elections after months of conflicts with the Awami League (AL) and the president of the Government, Sheikh Hasina. The final result has been expected according to the bourgeois media: overwhelming victory of the AL with more than 200 elected deputies of the 300 (waiting for confirmation on Monday night) and reelection of Sheikh Hasina as president for the next five years. The reality is that the abstention has been very victorious since turnout has been very small: the first official data showed an abstention of 72%, while the – probably faked – second showed that ‘only’ about 60% of Bangladeshi convened have not gone to vote, showing the contempt of the people before the perpetrated farce. On the other hand, the ruling classes have deployed 800,000 agents of the state repressive forces to control everything that happened during the electoral day. Not happy with this, also for the election day they have closed a newspaper critical with the current government, the Daily Manab Zamin. Also dozens of thugs of the AL were patrolling in the voting centers in Dhaka.
In these months, numerous clashes have occurred, a great state repression with thousands of detained people, blockade attempts from the BNP in which it lost control of the masses, and we have also seen a growing militarization of the streets. We already reported on the facts close to this election day. Today has not been different and again there have been riots, with dozens of detainees, two killed by the Bangladeshi repressive forces and burned electoral polls. A part of the Bangladeshi ruling classes, represented by the AL wanted to show normalcy during today, but this has not been possible at all.
Bangladeshi local sources have denounced lots of irregularities that show the rotten face of the semi-colonial and semi-feudal political system: although the AL was just alone or with a very minor opposition, it also had the objective of achieving a participation as high as possible to legitimize their reign. Therefore, local carriers have been hired and offered free trip to voters. They have also offered free meals to voters who approach, promoting President Hasina.
In short, the electoral day has developed how all recent events already pointed out, that is, with a lot of repression and deploying all kinds of tricks, even being determined in advance the elections, showing their real character: that they are a farce directed by the imperialists and the ruling classes of the country, and that the elections of the ruling classes have nothing to do with democracy.
