Bangla poll campaign ends amid chaos

Campaigning for Bangladesh’s general election ended on December 28 after weeks of violence, mainly against workers and officials from an Opposition alliance. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League is seeking its third straight term in the December 30 election against the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which boycotted the 2014 election.

The Awami League is promoting its economic record over the past decade, but a BNP-led alliance, many of whose leaders have been jailed, has vowed to remove media curbs, increase wages and freeze energy prices.

“The government has lost moral support,” BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said, urging voters to “restore democracy”.

The BNP’s preparations have been hamstrung by the February jailing of its chairwoman and former PM Khaleda Zia on what the party called trumped-up corruption charges.

Awami League leaders deny any misuse of power and say they will return to power with an overwhelming majority.

Hasina told supporters on December 27 that they must “ensure victory of pro-liberation forces”, a reference to Bangladesh’s war of independence from Pakistan in 1971 led by her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The BNP alleged that more than 8,200 Opposition leaders and activists from a coalition of about 20 parties had been arrested since the election schedule was announced last month. Four workers were killed and more than 12,300 injured, it said. The Awami League has, in turn, said the BNP and its partners were behind attacks that killed at least six of its workers over the past three weeks.

High-speed Internet services were suspended for several hours following orders from the country’s telecom regulator. The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) issued the order, asking mobile operators to slow down the Internet by shutting down 3G and 4G services. The services were restored on the morning of December 28 after a 10-hour blackout.

In a meeting with International Internet Gateway representatives on December 26, the BTRC said social media sites would be blocked to prevent the spread of fake news and propaganda messages from spreading on social media and video-sharing sites if needed.

Meanwhile, the lack of anti-India rhetoric during the poll campaign has come as a respite for New Delhi, which in the past was accused of intervening in the country’s politics.

Bangladesh’s ties with India this year grew steadily, with high-level visits from both sides. Hasina visited India in May during which she held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The past few years have been a “golden chapter” in bilateral ties when complicated issues of land and coastal boundaries were resolved, Modi had said at the time.