News & Comment
The Scandalous Municipal Elections Came as No Surprise for the People of Bangladesh;
This is how the Western-backed Hasina Regime is seeking to Survive and Exercise Control over the Country

News:

On 30 December 2015, local government polls took place in 234 municipalities in Bangladesh amid reports of violence, irregularities, and vote-rigging. The elections were held for the first time on partisan basis after the government amended a century-old system of electing local government bodies in last October to allow political parties to contest local government polls. The ruling Awami League (AL) candidates claimed a landslide victory in polls, bagging 181 mayoral posts while BNP got 20, Jatiya Party (JP) 1 and independent candidates won 26 posts of mayors.

Comment:

As part of its long-sought dream to exercise unquestioned and total control over the country and all its state machineries, the ruling Awami League (AL) party held this municipal election after bringing the necessary amendment of election laws in the name of demonstrating its popularity at grass-roots level. The first big step towards that dream was when Hasina’s tyrannical regime grabbed power through a controversial election held on 5th January 2014 in which her party Awami League won 232 in a total of 300 parliamentary seats. A whopping 153 seats were won uncontested and rests were elected through mysterious election process. The presence of voters in polling centers was low, yet the casted votes were significantly high. Even after the sham and scandalous 5th January general election, Hasina remained in power with the consent of USA-India as she was serving them very well whilst the opposition BNP-led alliance could not present any promising idea to achieve its popularity back among people and/or colonialist master. Despite serving her colonial and regional masters well through fulfilling their interests to extinguish the light of Islam in Bangladesh, the gangster regime of Hasina nevertheless finds itself in a very uncomfortable situation as they are totally isolated from the needs and aspirations of the Ummah.

Hence, to morally justify her evil regime in the eyes of the people, Hasina organized this fake election. But they failed to attract mass people as the ugly motive behind this election was unmasked when massive vote-rigging and attempts to take over the polling centers by the ruling party goons marked the end of the election. People are aware of the evil objectives of Hasina with the local government election i.e. to control people at grass-roots level also with fear and intimidation.

But the question is that are we really surprised at this tyrant government’s behavior for sinking so low as to politicize and manipulate even the local governments in their favour? Rather the great hue and cry from the BNP-led coalition and civil society on the election fraud has made us surprised that still they want us to believe that democracy is the precondition for growth in Bangladesh for which free and fair elections are compulsory. However, the ground reality is that people in Bangladesh have already come out of the ‘illusion of democratic elections’ as they observed time and again that democracy has always been used as the ‘Trojan Horse’ of the western imperialists to enslave Bangladesh through their puppet rulers. Government maneuvering of the sham democratic elections in Bangladesh and the poor turnout of the voters that are being replaced with vote tampering are some telling facts that people of Bangladesh are not buying into anymore rhetoric from the secular intellectual and media elites on this flawed and dying democratic system. Rather they cherish a new aspiration to embrace the promised Khilafah "Caliphate" (Caliphate) upon the method of the Prophethood, which they believe to be the only panacea to the maladies of western democracy.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Imadul Amin
Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Bangladesh