Here is my counterintuitive take: AL will actually have a better winter than many think.
What do people care about? Polls after polls show that prices, electricity, and law and order. Not India, not hanging the razakars, not corruption.
Here is how I see each of these factors will play out.
We have had seven multi-party parliamentary elections since 1970. All of them were in dry seasons — 1986 and 1996 in the summer heat, the rest (1970, 1979, 1991, 2001, 2008) in cooler months. We have had three (1973, 1988, 1996) one-sided elections — all in spring. We have had one aborted election in the winter of 2007.
Reading ADB5′s pieces, it occurs to me that we have never had a parliamentary election in the monsoon.
Jyoti Rahman has asked, compared to what? He is speaking, in this particular instance, of the disappointment expressed in the latest ICG report. However, I suspect that he is giving voice to a deeper thought that is troubling a lot of our citizens. Is this current government of Sheikh Hasina really so bad? Is it worth our time to get agitated against their daily-growing list of mis-steps and mistakes?
Unfortunately, taking the long view indicates that this second government headed by Sheikh Hasina may potentially undo any gains in democratic governance that Bangladesh has achieved in the past twenty years.
In a recent meeting, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has clarified that elections don’t have to be held three months before the parliament is dissolved. Rather, the preparation for elections shall begin three months before parliament is dissolved. A look at the relevant part of the Bangladeshi Constitution affirms this:
A general election of the members of Parliament shall be held-
(a) in the case of a dissolution by reason of the expiration of its term, within the period of ninety days preceding such dissolution ;
Therefore, the dates mentioned in this post need to be extended by three months.
However, the meeting produced its own set of interesting questions.
