'None of the above'

Both are continuing with the electioneering work which indicates to me that each sees the polls as the means to ultimate vindication.

In Bangladesh, being in full pre-election mode, of course, one has more to do with identifying suitable candidates for each seat and building up one's local grassroots organisations than with either performance in office (for the incumbent) or articulating an agenda for the future (for the opposition), but it is at least a start.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Sources tell me that both sides are now very heavily into the process of figuring out who is going to run where. The horse-trading has begun.

For the four-party alliance, the main tension is between the senior partner BNP and its junior partners in the alliance, most specifically, the Jamaat. In 2001, the alliance's electoral engineering was masterful, and the hope is that careful planning can ensure a repeat victory.

In 2001, the Jamaat was allotted thirty seats of which it managed to win seventeen, which for it was a far better showing than the 1996 election, when it ran on its own steam and ended up with only two seats.

Allotting Jamaat some thirty seats in return for Jamaat votes in the remaining 270 constituencies was a good deal for the BNP as well, since it ended up with some 190 seats, a sharp increase from its total of 113 seats in 1996.

This year the Jamaat wants more seats, hoping for a minimum of fifty, which might translate into a solid thirty seats in parliament. With ten per cent of the seats in parliament, the party would hope for even more cabinet seats and even greater influence in an ensuing government.

The trouble for the BNP is that the Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh (BDB) is waiting in the wings. For each BNP leader who is snubbed in favour of the Jamaat candidate, that is one potential candidate who the BDB could run in that seat.

Furthermore, as is always the case in Bangladesh, there are a good half dozen viable candidates for each seat, and once the official party decision is made, the unlucky finalists might easily be persuaded to jump ship and run either as an independent or under another party's banner. Keeping everyone happy is thus a tough balancing act.

Things are, if anything, even trickier for the opposition.

In the first place, it too will have just as many unhappy candidates who miss out on getting nominations and will be vulnerable to the temptation to jump ship and run as an independent candidate, possibly siphoning off thousands of votes and holding the balance of power in a closely contested constituency.

In addition, the AL will need to allot some seats to its coalition partners. Unfortunately, not too many of the coalition partners have too many viable candidates, and keeping everyone happy, and at the same time fielding candidates with a good shot of winning, is going to be a difficult process.

Without the advantage of incumbency, it is much harder for the opposition to get the local leaders who do not receive nominations to stay in line than for the government, which can offer all sorts of other inducements.

In fact, scrutinizing the disposition of the unwanted candidates will be a good indicator of which way the political wind is blowing. If there is a stampede of overlooked candidates in one direction or the other, that would be very telling.

But now that the selection process has begun, the time has come for the people to put pressure on the political parties to ensure that come election day the voters in each constituency have a good slate of candidates to choose from.

There are many methods for this. The High Court has issued an order directing that candidates for office must release certain information about themselves to the voters. This has not been complied with in recent by-elections and the EC has not taken any action against those who do not comply with the order, but the order is a start.

The idea is that mandatory publication of information will persuade the parties to run candidates with good reputations and records instead of party financiers or local musclemen. People's mobilisation ensuring that the High Court order is complied with would go a long way to ensuring a better choice at the polls.

Another initiative that would help ensure good elections is the inclusion of a provision for a "no" or "none of the above" vote. Under such a provision, if more voters choose "none of the above" than vote for any one candidate, then this would trigger a fresh election in that constituency.

This provision would empower the voters to reject flawed candidates in a meaningful way and help ensure that the political parties nominate only decent candidates. This would be a more meaningful alternative than having to vote for the "lesser of two evils" or voting for one's party-line candidate, even if one has reservations about him or her, out of fear that the other party's candidate will then win by default if one does not vote.

Citizens' groups have already been mobilising for some time behind this idea and I hope to hear it publicly debated more fully in the near future, with the aim of creating momentum behind what would be a truly bold initiative for positive change that would shift the balance of political power from the political parties to the people. This is not a partisan issue but is an idea that all believers in truly participatory democracy should be able to get behind.

Another good idea is for a non-partisan group to issue conditional endorsements of candidates who meet certain criteria. The idea is that there are good people in all parties and this kind of initiative would help persuade the party leaders to nominate only candidates who would garner such an endorsement or face a backlash at the polls.

Thus, even as the political parties start to get all their ducks in a row for the upcoming elections, there is much that the public can do in a non-partisan and people-focused manner to ensure that each voter gets to make a meaningful choice, the essence of democracy.

The voters need not be passive spectators, accepting everything that our political leaders choose to dish out. More than anything else, the public wants to ensure that there is a meaningful choice on the ballot, and despite the limitations of the political parties, widespread mobilisation on this issue can go a long way to securing good elections and returning the power to where it ought to reside in a democracy -- the hands of the people.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.