Bangladesh News

Although the intense desire of voters for honest and competent candidates remains largely unmet in this election, they are coming out of their homes to vote this morning at least with one positive impression about politics after witnessing over the last couple of weeks a welcome change in the country’s culture of electioneering.

The campaigns, which started on December 12 with the lifting of emergency restrictions on processions and rallies, were very different in many aspects this year from traditional election campaigns the country is used to.

Due to the stringent new electoral code of conduct drawn by the Election Commission (EC), residents of cities, especially of the capital, were relieved of graffiti and posters on their walls, and the roads were not marred by ‘decorative’ campaign gates that usually lack even the basics of aesthetics.

Almost all candidates and their supporters in the capital and elsewhere in the country carried out election campaigns complying with the code of conduct with only a few reported exceptions.

Campaigning with processions and rallies ended on Saturday midnight prompting the candidates to increase their quieter mode of canvassing through individual contacts.

Over the last two weeks the campaigners also showed tolerance towards their rivals and to commuters on the streets, which used to be too much to ask before.

According to the new code of conduct, the candidates were also not allowed to bring out campaign motorcades or any other vehicular procession for the purpose.

The organisers of processions and rallies, unlike in the past, seemed to consider commuters’ comfort this year, which hopefully will keep having its influence on future election campaigns too.

The people of this country are unfortunately used to seeing ransacking of vehicles and attacks on commuters by campaigners in pre-poll processions and rallies.

Violent street battles between supporters of rival candidates and even ‘electoral killings’ are nothing alien to the people, let alone the traffic jams and corollary sufferings of the people due to those incidents.

But this year, the candidates and their supporters refrained themselves from all those. Incidents of taking down posters of rival candidates were also hardly reported.

They even largely stayed away from printing expensive coloured posters, and churned out black and white ones instead, lines of which are still hanging from ropes over city streets, creating a festive canopy like effect.

City residents are also not shy about vociferously welcoming the change, as they hope it is only the beginning of a much larger change to come to the body politic of the country.

“This is surely a positive new trend in politics,” said Nyma Nargis of Mouchak in the capital.

Asaduzzaman Asad, a voter of Mirpur area in the capital, told The Daily Star that the new trend is the main reason behind the near total absence of pre-poll violence this year. “We never saw such decent campaigns before.”

“The nicest thing this year is that the candidates are not allowed to hold rallies or bring out processions blocking movement of the people, which used to be a constant irritant during previous elections,” said a Malibagh resident in the capital.

Instead of showing off their arrogance and a penchant for destruction, marching campaigners yielded to passing vehicles, guided by volunteers.

The people of this country have been yearning for such a change for decades.