Fair election & democracy

Taking the advantage of this dismal situation the organised vested groups in Bangladesh play their roles often invisibly to manipulate election results in their favour. This manipulation is carried out very discreetly using powerful state institutions and also capitalising on people's religious sentiments. The proviso of Caretaker Government sounded great at the outset but its formation retaining due objectivities has become ostensibly a very complex issue in the present context. Transient nature of the government with limited empowerment has, in the past, proven itself inept and helpless to decimate the influence of these power monger groups in election.

Foreign contingent of election monitors, because of their own limitations of resources, are not capable of conducting extensive micro-level monitoring of election.

In this critical time, a fair election is the only tool which can repair the fragmented fabric of Bangladesh and her democratic institutions. Based on the opinion of cross section of citizens and Bangladeshi expatriates we have identified following imperatives to be addressed to guarantee fairness of the coming election acceptable to all parties.

1) To install a Caretaker Government with consensus of all main political parties.

2) To empower the Caretaker Government to ensure that public organisations do not meddle directly or indirectly into election affairs.

3) To overhaul the Election Commission in every level to ensure a non-partisan format.

4) To ban religious parties from politics.

5)To bar individuals as candidates of next election who are indicted on corruption or any other criminal charges.

We firmly believe that a mechanism should be in place to validate the fairness of the upcoming elections in Bangladesh.