Death knell for politics as usual?

The piece achieves special significance in the context of the on-going dialogue between the BNP and the AL on reform of the caretaker government and the election commission and the public perception surrounding the dialogue.

It has been a staple of the PM's stump speech that the AL fears defeat at the polls and that its intransigence in negotiation is a result of this anxiety. However, now that Mr Choudhury has persuasively argued that the AL, in fact, at present enjoys a commanding lead over the BNP, the official BNP party line that the AL is out to come to power through the back-door since it cannot hope to come to power through the ballot box, rings increasingly hollow, and stands as evidence either of the ruling alliance leadership's cynicism or its loss of touch with reality, or some combination of the two.

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Indeed, Mr Choudhury's analysis is most compelling for the simple reason that it confirms, more or less, all the other polling information that has been compiled, and tallies with what casual empiricism suggests the mood of the nation seems to be.

If you were to take an informal survey of opinion, a straw poll, as it were, you will find that antipathy towards the BNP has reached a historic high. Don't take my word for it. Conduct your own straw poll of ten people at random: shop-keepers, taxi-drivers, rickshaw-pullers, office colleagues, friends, acquaintances, etc and see if this is not indeed the case.

One doesn't need to look at sophisticated polling data to determine that the public is boiling with anger at sky-rocketing prices, power and water shortages, and the high-handed and tone-deaf attitude in the government and ruling alliance.

The demonstrations in Kansat and Shonir Akhra and Phulbari and Mirpur have not come out of nowhere, nor have these movements arisen in a day or a week. The anger with the government has been building up for more or less the five years of its tenure, and it comes as no surprise that it should have reached boiling point in the last month of this current government's time in office.

The public is sophisticated enough to understand the connection between crime syndicates sponsored by the ruling elite and high prices, it is sophisticated enough to understand that the reason that new power plants have not been built is that power brokers at the very highest levels in the ruling party have not been sufficiently accommodated, it is sophisticated enough to understand that the reason that terrorism has been able to raise its head is that until recently the terrorists had been sponsored and sheltered by elements in the ruling alliance, and above all, the public is sophisticated enough to understand that, contrary to the government's insistent claims, that these have been a tough five years for the people, and that for the government to suggest otherwise is both mendacious and insulting.

It comes as no surprise then, that, at best, one voter in five is at present prepared to cast his or her ballot for the BNP or its likely allies. This government has lurched from fiasco to fiasco since the beginning of its assumption of office, but its most damaging characteristic has been the overweening arrogance of its power and its abundantly evident indifference to the interests and well-being of the public. The public sees this very well and is in the mood to issue a stern rebuke at the polls.

Kamran Choudhury is uniquely position to offer such a critique. As a one-time BNP MP who has no great affection for the AL, Mr Choudhury has no axe to grind against the party that has been his only home in post-independence politics, and he takes no joy whatsoever in being the messenger of ill tidings, either for the party or the country.

More importantly, his track record reveals him to be one of the most astute and insightful analysts of the political scene in Bangladesh. It was he who drew up the blue-print for the grand alliance that swept the BNP and its allies to power in 2001, employing a sophisticated political model that he had been refining since his entry into politics as a rookie BNP candidate back in 1979.

Crucially, Mr. Choudhury was willing to go on record with his prediction in April 2001, six months before the elections, and subject his analysis to rigorous scrutiny and examination, at a time when his findings were at considerable odds with the conventional wisdom. He was right then, and there is no reason to believe that his latest pain-staking analysis is anything but accurate.

More interesting, perhaps, than Mr. Choudhury's confirmation of the public anger against the BNP (which is no news-flash) is the revelation that the AL remains far from popular among the general public, today commanding the support of roughly only one voter in four, and that fully fifty per cent of the electorate as of today lines up behind no political party whatsoever.

This is the real meat of his analysis and represents a new and unprecedented independence on the part of the voting public that could have significant repercussions for the future of politics in this country.

It is not too late, Mr Choudhury suggests, for the AL to reach out to this disaffected fifty per cent, and attempt to fashion policies and proposals that will win them to the party's side. But the message for the AL is that they have been unable, thus far at least, to unite the people behind them, and that disenchantment with the ruling alliance, as widespread as it has been, has not translated into support for the opposition. This cannot be seen as anything other than a failure on the part of the main opposition. It is an important lesson that the party would do well to take heed of.

The AL has the upper hand. There can be little doubt that they would sweep to victory in a free and fair election. But the party should not confuse even a landslide (which is mathematically on the cards) election triumph with a commanding mandate or be fooled into thinking that the party retains the affections of a significant plurality of the public.

The AL, even if it comes to power, will need to engage in some serious and sustained house-cleaning if it hopes to transform itself into a political party that appeals to the people and is capable of delivering to them the governance they both deserve and will now demand.

The message that lies at the heart of Mr Choudhury's analysis is that politics as usual is finished in Bangladesh. We are entering a new era in which neither the BNP nor the AL can continue to rely on their historic vote banks and in which they will need to upgrade and re-invent themselves from the bottom up if they do not wish to be consigned to the ash-heap of history.

Whichever of the two parties is best able to understand this uncomplicated truth and act upon it will be the one to survive. And if neither one of them is able to do so, then they are both finished. It really is as simple and as straight-forward as that. The Bangladeshi people have had enough of politics as usual.

Let us see how the dialogue over reforms in advance of the up-coming election turns out. The tenor of the talks should provide us with a pretty good clue as to whether the message has been received or not.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor, The Daily Star.